Parallels Between Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now

   The Hollow Men is a poem by T.S. Eliot who won the Nobel Prize in 1948 for all his great accomplishments. The Hollow Men is about the hollowness that all people have; while Heart of Darkness is a story of the darkness that all people have. The poem written by Eliot was greatly influenced by Conrad and Dante. Some people may even think that WWI also influenced it. It was written after World War I and could be describing how people's beliefs had been eroded. I think that a lot of the poem is written about Heart Of Darkness, and Dante's Inferno is used as imagery for the poem. In this essay I will show how the poem The Hollow Men is talking about the same

In both The Things They Carried and Apocalypse Now, transitional archetypical roles are used to show the degradation of innocence, as a result of the conflicts of war. In The Things They Carried, Mary Anne Bell, the young girlfriend of solider Mark Fossie, is brought to Vietnam in the heart of the war to be with him. In the beginning of her visit, Mary Anne is extremely soft, kind, and ignorant to the nature of the conflict taking place around her (O’Brien 91). Her relationship with Mark is one that appears as overly romanticized: “Mary Anne Bell and Mark Fossie had been sweethearts since grammar school. […] [someday] they would be married, and live in a fine gingerbread house near Lake Erie, and have three healthy yellow -haired children.

In the novella Heart of Darkness, and the film Apocalypse Now, both Joseph Conrad and Francis Ford Coppola question the supposed dichotomy between civilized society and uncivil savagery. Although both the novella and the film differ in setting, Africa and Vietnam respectively, both [uncover] man’s primeval nature, as their protagonists journey down the respective rivers, and descend into the heart of darkness. Perhaps the most significant aspect in the journeys of both Marlow and Willard, is witnessing the psychological breakdown of “civilized” men as their removal from society and exposure to the primitive practices of the “savages” living in the jungle, unleashes their own primordial instincts. This frightening observation effectively conveys

In Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, both Joseph Conrad and Francis Ford Coppola create similar statements through their creations as they both centralize their views upon the effects of environmental changes that affect the human condition. The film Apocalypse Now vaguely reflects a similar message pursued by Conrad’s novella, due to the difference in time period, place setting, and circumstances in which the film was created. Conrad wrote his novella during British colonization, focusing upon imperialism. Coppola’s film similarly focused upon the barbaric nature of man, which demonstrates the insanity of the Vietnam War. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad centers his main focus upon the journey of Marlow, a sailor, who travels into

    In 1979, Francis Coppola released a film that he said he hoped "would give its audience a sense of the horror, the madness, the sensuousness, and the moral dilemma of the Vietnam war" (as quoted in Hagen 230). His film, Apocalypse Now, based on Joseph Conrad's 1902 novel Heart of Darkness, is the story of Captain Benjamin Willard's (Martin Sheen) journey to the interior of the jungle of Southeastern Asia for the purpose of executing his orders to track down Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando). Once Kurtz is located, Willard is to "terminate his command with extreme prejudice" because Kurtz has raised an army of deserters and natives, whom he

Joseph Conrad 's Heart of Darkness is both a dramatic tale of an arduous trek into the Belgian Congo at the turn of the twentieth century and a symbolic journey into the deepest recesses of human nature. On a literal level, through Marlow 's narration, Conrad provides a searing indictment of European colonial exploitation inflicted upon African natives. By employing several allegoric symbols this account depicts the futility of the European presence in Africa.

When Joseph Conrad sat down to write Heart of Darkness over a century ago he decided to set his tale amidst his own country's involvement in the African Congo. Deep in the African jungle his character would make his journey to find the Captain gone astray. Over eighty years later Francis Ford Coppola's Willard would take his journey not in Afica but in the jungles of South Asia. Coppola's Film, Apocalypse Now uses the backdrop of the American Vietnam War yet the similarities between the Conrad's novel and Coppola's film remains constant and plenty.

following the story line of the Heart of Darkness is amazing although the settings of each story are from completely different location and time periods. From the jungle of the Congo in Africa to the Nung river in Vietnam, Joseph Conrad's ideals are not lost. In both the book and the movie, the ideas of good and evil, whiteness, darkness, and racism are clear. Also, characterization in both the novel and the movie are very similar. Both The Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now examine the good and evil in human

In both texts, there are individuals showcasing major facets motivated by greed, obsessed with the stimulus that is presented in either century. In Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the character

The book, The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is about the protagonist, Charlie Marlow, re-telling his grotesque journey up the Congo River on behalf of a Belgian ivory trading company. During his journey he encounters the harshness of colonialism has impacted the African natives and just how money and power can fully consume the heart of a good man. The play, Hamlet by William Shakespeare outlines the story of a Prince seeking revenge for his father’s murder by his power hungry brother. The two works Hamlet and Heart of Darkness are set and written in different time periods and different settings, but, are metaphorically on the same shelf when it comes to how the dark themes of murder and corruption are presented and how they affect those around them.

     Each character has a special role in the novel; Kurtz and Marlow are the most important, through these two characters we are able to see how good and evil balance each other out. Marlow?s journey into the heart of darkness can also be seen as a journey into his own soul. He was in search of the darkest of objects, the ivory. Unlike Kurtz, Marlow was able to withstand the darkness from controlling him. Kurtz soul became the darkness and caused him to forget everything else there was to life. His last words were not that of love but rather of hate, ?The horrors the horrors.?

The idea of company man turned savage, of a brilliant and successful team-player, being groomed by "the Company" for greater things, suddenly gone native, is perfectly realized in both novella and film. In the film, Kurtz is portrayed by Marlon Brando, the father of American method actors, who lends weight (both physically and dramatically) to the figure of the megalomaniacal Kurtz. Brando's massive girth is all the more ironic for those familiar with Heart of Darkness who recall Conrad's description: "I could see the cage of his ribs all astir, the bones of his arms waving. It was as though an animated image of death carved out of old ivory had been shaking its hand with menaces at a motionless crowd of men..." (Conrad, p.135). One could speculate that Coppola's Kurtz is a graphic analogy of the bloated American war machine dominating and perverting the innocent montegnards of Cambodia; however, after viewing Eleanor Coppola's documentary, one finds that the casting was more based on a combination of Coppola's wanting to work with Brando (remember "The Godfather") and Brando's own weight problem. (It should also be noted that the cult-like following of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness is brilliantly and subtly updated by Coppola in a foreshadowing scene in which missives to Willard from headquarters are intercut with scenes of newspaper clippings about Charles Manson.)

Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now lacks the impact of its inspiration, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. While the basic elements of imperialism and human nature remain intact, the characters of the film bare little resemblance to their literary counterparts. The film serves as a re-interpretation of Conrad’s novella, updated from 19th-century British imperialism in the Congo to a critique of 20th-century U.S. imperialism in Southeast Asia. Coppola’s changes in setting and plot structure, however, force the film to sacrifice the character development so crucial in the literary work. This detracts from the overall effectiveness of the film.

Heart of Darkness, written by Joseph Conrad and “Apocalypse Now”, a movie directed by Francis Coppola represent two outstanding examples that compare relevant ideas regarding racism, colonialism, and prejudices. The two combine film along with descriptive language to portray their mastery during different eras. For Heart of Darkness, Conrad uses his writing techniques to illustrate Marlow in the Congo, while in “Apocalypse Now”, Coppola uses film editing and close ups on important scenes with unique sounds to identify Willards’ quest for Kurtz. Both portray the idea of colonization in foreign lands that otherwise may have been uninhabited by their own people if left alone.

Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart exemplify two different perspectives of African Literature. In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad shows the African Culture through the eyes of the ‘white man’ or colonizing Europeans. In this story the native Africans are depicted as vicious savages.