Pat O'Hara
Ms. Duneman
AP English 3
9 September 2004
Response to Heart of Darkness Essay Question #3

	It has been said of Heart of Darkness that “...Nine decades after its publication it remains one of the most read, and debated, of English works.” This is certainly true; this book cuts to the core of modern society, and forces us to totally re-think what it means to be human.
	Why is this work of fiction so debated? Because it identifies the issue of colonialism justified by racism, or "The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking of it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves..."
	Certainly, Joseph Conrad can not be excluded form being labeled as a racist. However, this is totally unimportant. Anybody who looks for Conrad's racist ideas in the book is totally missing the point of the story, and is most likely simply looking for trouble. Conrad. He is not a racist in the sense that he hates black people and wishes all of them to suffer eternal damnation (read, “Ku Klux Klan”). It is mental stance based on the notion of cultural superiority, one that comes with a mental sigh of “those poor bastards.” He does not hate blacks for being black; he does not hate blacks, period. He simply believes them to be culturally inferior. And when you get right down to it, what reasons does Conrad have for believing otherwise? At the point in time in which Conrad penned Heart of Darkness, the Africans in the Congo really didn't do anything; they just existed... and provided cheap labor for the ivory industry.
	However, Conrad does not ignore the fact that the Africans are human; throughout the entire book, he expounds upon the inhuman treatment of them by their white oppressors.
	But why do people do the things they do to other people? How are they capable of committing such atrocities, and what are their justifications for doing so? This book leads us to believe that the potential for evil lies within every human heart, no matter how seemingly noble it is in the 'civilized' culture that is the western hemisphere.
	The central theme in Hear t of Darkness is the explanation of the darker aspects of human nature. While the primary aspect examined in the book is the ability to oppress other peoples, it also devotes a small part of itself to the ability for a human psyche to change and adapt to its environment.