Topic > Ethics and Morals in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

For the most part each person decides what they will do. There are laws in place that suggest what a person should do and suggest whether something is right or wrong, based on a society's norms. The laws will be different and will vary from place to place. An example of this would be marijuana. In Colorado, smoking marijuana is legal, but here in Arizona it is illegal. Some people believe that it is wrong to smoke marijuana, while others see no problem with it. It is human nature to believe that there is right and wrong, but it is also a human choice that determines right and wrong for people, if someone doesn't think something is wrong, they will more than likely proceed to do whatever it is they want. And depending on what they do, their actions can result in consequences, minor or severe. Human nature plays a huge role in how someone acts in a society. An example from the Heart of Darkness would be how the people of the villages along the meandering river treat and kill someone over a simple misunderstanding of the language. They killed the ship's captain, Fresleven, due to an “argument born from a misunderstanding between some chickens” (Condrad, 2014). If someone were to have a misunderstanding now, in the present, they could take a different approach instead of killing that person. Human nature plays a big role in what someone thinks it is