There can be no doubt as to the fact that Joseph Conrad’s novel “Heart of Darkness” and Francis Coppola’s movie “Apocalypse Now” significantly differ from each other, in terms of plot’s composition, geographical settings, and the most important – in how Conrad and Coppola exploit the theme of “white man’s burden” in their works. This can be explained by the simple fact that, by the time Conrad was working on his novel, White people throughout the world were not being infused with the psychological complex of “historical guilt”, as it became a commonplace occurrence since comparatively recent times. It is namely during the course of the sixties, when the obscure ideology of neo-Liberalism started to gain popularity among citizens in Western countries, which was one of the reasons why it became a gesture of good taste, on the part of “lefties”, to badmouth American soldiers, while they were executing their professional duties in Vietnam. What Coppola did, was taking Conrad’s idea that it is impossible to “civilize” non-White savages, and transforming it into the idea that the very concept of Western civilization, as we know it, is metaphysically evil. This is the most important difference between the book and the movie. In this paper, we are going to explore this thesis in detail. Nowadays, Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” is often being referred to as such that criticizes the very concept of European colonialism. We can agree with such point of view to a certain degree, but it is not because the novel’s main character Marlow views the process of European colonists bringing the light of civilization to primeval savages as “immoral”, “intolerant” or “racist”, but because Marlow comes to a conclusion that it is something utterly unnatural for a White person to have any dealings with African cannibals, in the first place. As a true European intellectual of the 19 th century, Marlow does not even consider Blacks as people, in the full sense of this word: “We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil… The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us – who could tell? They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces, but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity – like yours – the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly” (Conrad, Ch. 2). What shocks Marlow the most, is the fact that, by remaining in Africa for a prolonged period, White people are being deprived of a significant part of their humanity. He subconsciously senses that close socialization with Blacks, on the part of White colonists, represents a transgression against the laws of nature, and therefore, would have negative consequences in the future. Thus, we can say that “Heart of Darkness” is actually a prophetic book, because it is only today that we slowly begin to pay the price for the greediness of our ancestors – the countries that pursued the policy of colonial conquests with utmost vigor (Britain, France, Belg