Comparison of Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now
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Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now
Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, and Apocalypse Now, a
movie by Francis Ford Coppola can be compared and contrasted in many ways.
By focusing on their endings and on the character of Kurtz, contrasting the
meanings of the horror in each media emerges. In the novel the horror
reflects Kurtz tragedy of transforming into a ruthless animal whereas in
the film the horror has more of a definite meaning, reflecting the war and
all the barbaric fighting that is going on.
Conrads Heart of Darkness, deals with the account of Marlow, a
narrator of a journey up the Congo River into the heart of Africa, into the
jungle, his ultimate destination. Marlow is commissioned as an ivory agent
and is sent to ivory stations along the river. Marlow is told that when he
arrives at the inner station he is to bring back information about Kurtz,
the basis of this comparison and contrast in this paper, who is the great
ivory agent, and who is said to be sick. As Marlow proceeds away to the
inner station “to the heart of the mighty big river. resembling an
immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving
afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land”
(Dorall 303), he hears rumors of Kurtzs unusual behavior of killing the
Africans. The behavior fascinates him, especially when he sees it first
hand: “and there it was black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids- a head
that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and with the shrunken dry
lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth, was smiling too, smiling
continuously at some endless and jocose dream of that eternal
slumber”(Conrad 57). These heads that Marlow sees are first hand evidence
of Kurtzs unusual behavior. The novel ends with Kurtz “gradually engulfing
the atrocities of the other agents in his own immense horror”(Dorall 303).
At his dying moment, Kurtz utters “The Horror! The Horror!, which for the
novel are words reflecting the tragedy of Kurtz, and his transformation
into an animal.
Apocalypse Now is a movie that is similarly structured to the book
but has many different meanings. The movie takes place during the Vietnam
War. The narrator is Captain Willard, who is given a mission to locate and
kill Colonel Kurtz, who is said to be in Cambodia killing the Vietcong,
South Vietnamese and the Cambodians. Willard journeys up the Nung river to
find Kurtz, and eventually finds and kills him. Kurtzs words “The Horror!,
The Horror!” in the film have a different meaning from the novel. Their
meaning is not definite though and could only be understood by taking a
deeper look at the character of Kurtz this film.
At the point when Willard, from Apocalypse Now, and Marlow from
Heart of Darkness, meet up with their Kurtzes, the two media break off from
their similar structure and start to develop differently. The Kurtz in
Conrads novel is told to be “a universal genius,the flower of European
Civilization”(Conrad qtd. in LaBrasca 289). Kurtz becomes a beacon of hope
for Marlow who is searching for him amid much heat, bugs, natives and
immense fog. Marlow approaches Kurtzs place of refuge, described as “the
shack of the universal genius surrounded by a crude row of posts, holding
high the severed heads of rebels(Africans)”(Conrad qtd. in Labrasca 290).
From these words we can see that Kurtz is no ordinary man. Kurtz himself
was described as “an animated image of death carved out of old
ivory”(Conrad qtd. in Labrasca 290). Essentially Kurtz has succumbed to
disease and starvation, and is basically being eaten alive as he nears
death. He had such a greed for ivory also. Kurtz exclaims “My