From the publication of his first novel in 1951, William Styron's narratives have received a great deal of attention, ranging from the laudatory to the severely critical. Focusing on an area largely uncharted in Styron's work - the shadowy subterrain of darkness in texts whose ultimate project is an exploration of consciousness - this study suggests that his writing be viewed as a personal expedition of sorts, a journey towards a psychological borderland. Variations on a theme, the unchanging story of Styron's texts takes the form of a compulsive pursuit of the mechanisms of the psyche, a mapping out of the landscape of depression.