Revealing the Heart of Darkness in Apocalypse Now Essay

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

Some critics believe that in Heart of Darkness Conrad illustrates how ‘’the darkness of the landscape can lead to the darkness of the social corruption.” This statement means that if the environment is dark, then the people in that environment will match the surrounding feeling, which is dark and depressing. For example, if it is a gloomy rainy day, most people feel tired and not as happy. If it is a bright sunny day, the most people feel motivated to get things done and joyful. Yes, this statement is believable because I have noticed that the weather, my surroundings, and even other people’s behaviors around me affect my mood. Today, for instance, it rained all day and the sky was dark, as a result I slept throughout the whole

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.

In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Marlow chooses a brighter path than his counterpart in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, Capt. Willard. The two share in the duty of searching for and discovering Kurtz, as well as taking care of his memory, but their beliefs before encountering him place the characters at opposing ends of a theme. These opposing ends are light and dark, representing good and evil.

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.

It is noticeable that elements of Joseph Conrad’s novella ‘Heart of Darkness’ is appropriated into Francis Ford Coppola’s film ‘Apocalypse Now’ however it is set in the jungles of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. As the title suggests, Conrad’s novel deeply explores the ‘darkness’ potentially inherent in people’s hearts. Heart of Darkness is set on the Congo River during the European occupation of Africa and was written in the 18th Century at the time of Belgian Imperialism. Conrad explores the effect of exploitation on humanity. Similarly, Coppola’s film explores the metaphorical ‘darkness’ in Vietnam that causes the ‘apocalypse’ in the soldiers’ hearts, when they were sent to Vietnam.

The want of power and influence over people who are different is seen in Heart of Darkness through the idea of imperialism and degradation of the African people. Imperialism was the rampant force that was driving various European nations to conquer African lands for its rich resources and for the exploitation of its people. Although the story is told through one character (i.e., Marlow), Conrad successfully portrays the general

There are very few movies based on novels that become successful. If we take a look at the novella Heart of Darkness and the movie Apocalypse now, we will find that these two works parallel each other. Apocalypse Now is a 1979 movie of Coppola interpretation of Conrad’s book. The book and the movie both deal with a Captain who was commanded to go on a missing up the Congo River to assassinate a mad colonel who made himself God among local pilgrims. The underlying theme present in both could be revealed just from looking at the title of both works. The main characters Marlow and Willard both learned about the battle between good and evil and how the jungle can bring out the evil in everyone.

Morality has been interpreted in different ways throughout life, but there is only one true definition, which leads to the reality of what society truly is. Joseph Conrad uses narration in Heart of Darkness to explain and analyze human’s moral values. It is true that all humans are savages, but this savage nature does not make someone a bad person. If a person uses one’s savage features for evil and do not restrain from doing so, then it is the lack of restraint that brings upon the evil in humans. Restraint is necessary for the sake of mankind because it helps a person to ease into understanding the harsh reality of life. Morality is the ability to restrain from using one’s savage nature for the demise of

Heart of Darkness takes place in the height of the European imperialism and appears most frequently in the Belgian Congo, the heart of the Congo. Conrad used the ideas of imperialism and greed, which was extremely prominent in this era, as a platform for the ideas of the conscious and unconscious mind of an individual. In the novel the Europeans were perceived to be more valuable or important and put into a position of power not out of respect or earned amount but out of fear, fear because they had more advanced weapons and scared the native people of the land into obedience. They were cast into a land without guidelines or complete authority, this resulted in anarchy and the slow decay of sanity. The isolation from the social norms drove the

Coppola creates interesting parallels between Willard and Marlow; Marlow’s voyage downriver to the heart of Africa and Willard’s mission on the Nung River in Vietnam. Both men are on journey’s to the darkest of places: journey into “self”, and the discoveries to be made there. Both are about men confronting fears of failure, insanity, death, and cultural corruption. However, both are also are drastically different at times. Ronald Bogue’s article “The Heartless Darkness in Apocalypse Now” provides a wonderful intake on commonalties and differences in the two works. He notes that “by

Joseph Conrad lived in a time where racism and colonialism were prevalent and often went hand in hand. In his novel, Heart of Darkness, he uses characters Kurtz and Marlow to detail his psychoanalytical findings and account for the evil that came with the colonization of the Congo. The exposure to horror and the absolute freedom of mind blurs Kurtz’s reality and pushes Marlow to the edge of insanity. On his own journey to the Congo, Conrad witnessed many atrocities done by colonists toward the natives. According to Conrad's accounts, the exposure that the colonists experience in the Congo switches on a mode of survival, leading them to make decisions without accounting for the lack of morality. As a result, as more time passes, they become

In Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" the reader learns more and more about human nature as Marlow, Captain Willard, go farther and farther up the river in search of Kurtz. An evil side lies within every man, but this evil remains repressed by society. When moving up the river and farther away from civilization, the evil side begins to break out. Whenever basically different cultures meet we are led to discover ourselves and can even drive us to perceived madness.

Although, as a society, we discourage the process of not judging a book by its cover, we have all been guilty of doing it at some point. The first item we look at when we pick up a new book is the title and the cover as a whole. These are two key components when it comes to using our heuristics to decide if a book is worthwhile reading or not. With only two items to judge by, each has to hold significant importance in order to draw a reader into reading the novel. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad represents a mysterious title to draw readers into reading the novel, but hold a much more significant underlying meaning which represents many elements in the novel, while also symbolizing external concepts in the overall plot. The title represents many important elements such as the character of Mr. Kurtz and others, to the setting of Africa in the novel, and to the concept of the evil nature of imperialism outside of the novel. Through the title, Conrad has created significance for elements of the novel creating a very large impact on readers of the book.

In this way, “Heart of Darkness” brings an otherwise unmentioned landscape to life. It allows the viewer to really visualize features that Conrad simply