This week, your students will be learning about Joseph Conrad’s, Heart of Darkness. This story is about white men going into the Congo and colonizing the place in search of acquiring ivory. The white people see the Congolese as not being human, as being wild and savage. In almost an alternate universe fashion, Planet of the Apes has the apes are the ones that are in control. These beings that are literally not human, have now come into power and treatthe humans how the white man treated the black slaves.

Heart of Darkness covers a theme that has run throughout history since the beginning of time,unchecked power leads to corruption. And corruption comes in many forms, the corruption of the mind, the corruption of society. In Heart of Darkness, Mr. Kurtz was already corrupt by societies ideals that these people in the Congo were less than human which was the foundation for his corruption of power which corrupted his mind and eventually lead him to madness.

This is also seen in the 1968 film, Planet of the Apes. In this movie, it was the military force of the apes thathad unchecked power, which lead to the horrible treatment of the humans, much like how the white man military in the Congo treated the Congolese horrifically in Heart of Darkness.

Overall, both the militaries of the apes and the white men had unchecked power that lead to the corruption of the societies and terrible treatment of the enslaved.