Just How Dark is Your Heart? Taiina Ayala

While beginning to read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, our teacher had us play a card game which was a stimulation of the situation in The Congo, and many other places, during this time. In the game, we were put in teams and played the role of the Europeans. We had many obstacles and were faced with tough decisions regarding treatment towards the natives. But through it all we had one common goal: Profit. My team won, coming out with the larger amount of profit. After playing the game we were asked a series of questions. These were my responses.

-What are some factors that influenced the choices you made?

Money. The resources (eatable diamonds) became the sole drive being our actions.  We also considered environmental conditions and natives’ well-being and mood (but only for our sake.)

-Under what circumstances would you have made different choices?

Strategically, if we had all good weather at first we would’ve been more cautious and we wouldn’t have pressed as much. If were able to see firsthand our extremely negative effects on the native people.

-How do you feel about the choices you made?

Overall, pretty good. We weren’t TOO harsh on them. But I do feel bad that we came in guns blazing. I hope families weren’t slaughtered or anything.

-Realistic portrayal?

Yes. We had a team that we made decisions with. We all had a common goal that really only involved the natives’ as tools to get what we really wanted. We were going after a resource for profit, as were the Europeans in Heart of Darkness. Survival was an ongoing struggle. And ultimately it posed the question, “How far are you willing to go to get what you want?”—a question the colonizers were forced to answer for themselves every day.

-Unrealistic portrayal?

In real life, our stay across seas would most likely be way longer than 12 months. Something that kept us going was knowing that we only had a few months left. In real life, they didn’t have that reassurance. Also, there would probably more than four months of bad weather. Weather can be very unpredictable. We saw no effects of the harm we caused upon the villages. Usually natives wouldn’t just give resources away, even for survival. Also, they wouldn’t have been so nice to us after all the oppression we caused, especially since my team came in guns blazing.

-How did this affect your understanding of European colonialism?

After playing this game I found myself sympathizing with the colonizers. What little thoughts I had about the natives were aimed only toward our profit’s well-being. It became only about winning and this part of me honestly alarms me. I suppose that this is a main theme of Heart of Darkness. It brings to light something about humanity that is usually hidden. We all know we have that dark side; we just like to believe that our personal worst is better than others’. We look back at the greedy European imperialists and swear we would have done things differently when in fact, I’m not so sure. The fact that while answering these questions after playing the game, I said that we didn’t hurt the natives “TOO much” was a little frightening. If this had been real life, hundreds of people would’ve died on our accounts. Would I still have invented justifications for my obvious cruel actions? I’d like to say I wouldn’t—that it would be different. But the truth is, I’m not sure.