White Lies in Heart of Darkness In his short story Heart of Darkness (1899), Joseph Conrad through his main narrator, Marlow, reflects on the evils of the human condition as he has experienced it in Africa and Europe. Viewed from the perspective of Conrad's nameless, objective persona, the evils Marlow encountered during the expedition to the "heart of darkness," Kurtz's Inner Station on the banks of the serpentine Congo River, fall into two categories: petty crimes and lies. trivialities that are the order of the day, and the worst evils: the grotesque acts that society attributes to madmen. That the first class of mischief is linked to the second is illustrated by the downfall of the story's secondary protagonist, the tragically deluded and arrogant Mr. Kurtz. The European idealist, believing the lies of his Company and the economic imperialism that supports it, is unprepared for the test of character that the Congo imposes, and succumbs to the diabolical potential latent in every human consciousness. Although numerous critics (including Johanna M. Smith, Peter Hyland, Herbert Klein, and Garrett Stewart) have drawn attention to how Marlow's lie to the Expected informs the entire preceding text and how the climactic scene with the Expected is linked to the Marlow's initial impression of Brussels as a whitewashed tomb. (how appropriate in light of Belgian King Leopold II's hypocritical defense of his private company's rapacious exploitation of the ridiculously named Congo Free State!), few have focused until recently on how lying influences the reaction of the reader to Marlow as the protagonist and narrator of Conrad's The Tale of the Congo. He answers the questions that the deceased asks him...... in the center of the paper......Rosmarin, Adena. “Darkening the Reader: Reader Response Critique and the Heart of Darkness.” Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness: A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism, ed. Ross C. Murfin. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989. Pp. 148-171.Smith, Johanna M. Smith. “‘Too Beautiful Entirely’: Patriarchal Ideology in Heart of Darkness.” Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness: A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism, ed. Ross C. Murfin. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989. Pp. 179-198. Stewart, Garrett. "To lie is to die in the heart of darkness." PMLA 95 (1980): 319-331. Trilling, Lionel. "Huckleberry Finn." The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1950. Pp. 100-113.Wright, Walter F. “Entry into the Heart of Darkness.” Romanticism and tragedy in Joseph Conrad. New York: Russell and Russell, 1966. Pp. 143-160.