Conrad's Heart of Darkness exemplifies the vainness and ineffective attempts by the Europeans to successfully colonize and "civilize" the continent of Africa. Most of the European settlers....I can't do this anymore! This book was awful! I hated reading it! It was the most pointless novel ever written and I personally believe that every copy of Heart of Darkness should be burned in a huge bonfire. My English teacher forced us to read this piece of crud and made us write lots of stuff on it. Let me tell you, for every word in this book I read, I died a little bit inside.