As Nina completed the novel over the weekend, we discussed what Nina enjoyed about the novel(reading it) as well as her criticisms of the oblique ending and her observation that the novel's harsh critique of European colonialism was important but still somewhat outdated. We then parsed the last pages drenched in verbal and dramatic irony wherein Marlow visits Kurtz' fiancee and abandons his reverence for truth to maintain the fiancee's illusion that Kurtz was a great noble man. We identified the irony and double meaning of each line of Marlow's conversation with Kurtz' fiancee. This led to the philosophical examination of whether truth or illusion and Faith have greater value and under what circumstances illusions must be maintained. We tied this discussion to the illusion /reality motif and to the great"Idea" or pretense that justifies colonial exploitation that Marlow alluded to in the opening pages . In this same vein, we compared Kurtz' European fiancee with his paramour ,an African Native, as representations of this dichotomy . During our final session, we reviewed Nina's study guide homework which addressed Marlow's (and Conrad's) bleak view of life as purposeless and futile. Last, we reviewed all of the vocabulary(taken from the novel) that will appear on the final exam.