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Heart of Darkness In examining ourselves and understanding the soul, we notice that society has the ability to bring out our savage sides. At times, this evil side has the tendency to breakout during times of isolation from our culture or when we notice great differences between cultures. Apocalypse Now is loosely based on Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness. Both deal with the main character, whether it is Captain Willard in Apocalypse Now or Marlow in Heart of Darkness, sharing their tales of an expedition down a river into a jungle of darkness. The darkness they witness is however moral. The main character meets a man, Kurtz, who has significant power over people, sees past the truth yet still represents the embodiment of evil.
Both stories are about mans journey into his self, and the discoveries to be made there. They are also about man confronting his fears of failure, death, and cultural contamination. Both Conrad's novel and Coppola's adaptation of the novel deal with the power of imperialism and both the bright light and extreme darkness the imperialism helped bring about. Heart of Darkness dealt with the British ivory trade in Africa (along the Congo) while Apocalypse Now focused on the American involvement with the affairs in Vietnam. During Marlow's mission to find Kurtz, he is also trying to find himself. He, like Kurtz had good intentions upon entering the Congo.
Conrad tries to show us that Marlow is what Kurtz had been once, and Kurtz is what Marlow could become. Every human has a little of Marlow and Kurtz in them. Marlow says about himself, "I was getting savage (Conrad 1), " meaning that he was becoming more like Kurtz. Along the trip into the wilderness, they discover their true selves through contact with savage natives. As Marlow's travels down the Congo, he feels like he is traveling back through time. He notices the wilderness and can feel the darkness of its solitude.
Marlow comes across simpler cannibalistic cultures along the banks. The deeper into the jungle he goes, the more regressive the inhabitants seem. Kurtz had lived in the Congo, and was separated from his own culture for quite some time. He was once thought to be a great and honorable man but he had changed greatly since living in the jungle.
After leaving his own society, his evil side emerged and Kurtz became corrupted by his newfound power. Marlow tells us about the Ivory that Kurtz kept as his own, and that he had no restraint, and was a tree swayed by the wind (Conrad, 34). Marlow mentions the human heads displayed on posts that showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts (Conrad, 31). Conrad also tells us his nerves went wrong, and caused him to preside at certain midnight dances ending with unspeakable rights, which were offered up to him (Conrad, 43), meaning that Kurtz went insane and allowed himself to be worshipped as a god.
It appears that while Kurtz had been isolated from his culture, he had become corrupted by this violent native culture, and allowed his evil side to control him. Marlow realizes that only very near the time of death, does a person grasp the big picture. He describes Kurtz's last moments as though a veil had been rent Conrad, ). Kurtz's last supreme moment of complete knowledge (Conrad, 45), showed him how horrible the human soul really can be. Marlow can only speculate as to what Kurtz saw that caused him to exclaim The horror!
The horror, but later adds that since I peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare it was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness he had summed up, he had judged (Conrad, 41). Marlow realizes that Kurtz knew everything and discovered how horrible the duplicity of man can be. Marlow learned through Kurtz's death, and he now knows that of the evil that lingers inside every human soul. Apocalypse Now is based loosely upon Conrad's book. Captain Willard is a Marlow who is on a mission into Cambodia during the Vietnam war to find and kill an insane Colonel Kurtz. Coppola's Kurtz, as he experienced his epiphany of horror, was an officer and a sane, successful, brilliant Green Beret leader.
Like Conrad's Kurtz, Coppola shows us a man who was once very well respected, but became corrupted due to the horror and culture that he witnessed. We must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig, cow after cow, village after village, army after army.
And they call me an assassin. What do you call it when the assassins accuse the assassin? (Colonel Kurtz). Kurtz sees the horror that America is producing in Vietnam and decides to do things his way. Coppola tells us in Hearts of Darkness that Kurtz's major fear is not being remembered for what he did; only what he had become. The story Kurtz tells Willard about the Special Forces going into a village, inoculating the children for polio and going away, and then the communists coming into the village and cutting off all the childrens inoculated arms. The Vietnamese were killing their own people.
This triggered Kurtz and caused him to go mad. He wept like some grandmother and when, called back by a villager, he saw the pile of little arms, a sophisticated version of the escalating horrors. What Kurtz meant by escalating horrors can only be the Vietnamese army's senseless decapitation, torture, and the like. Does Kurtz go mad?
Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now was a product of America while Mr. Kurtz in Heart of Darkness was the product of imperialistic Europe. This tells us that the evil side and the madness in both Kurtz's was brought out by the fear of new cultures different from their own, and their inability to deal with this fear. The disconnection between the opening words of Kurtz's report By the simple exercise of our will, we can exert a power for good practically unbounded and the note on the last page, Exterminate all the brutes! illustrates the progressive externalization of Kurtz's fear of contamination, the personal fear of loss of self which colonialist whites saw in the uncivilized, seemingly regressive lifestyle of the natives. Gradually, the duplicity of man and reality merged for the two Kurtz's, one in the Congo, and one in Vietnam.
American culture always vies itself to be in the right and we see ourselves as the most powerful force in the world. Perhaps we are the world police? But as we noticed the American reaction during our involvement in Vietnam, we see how the American people acted so negatively towards that stint. We looked down upon those simpler then us, the African slaves we owned, the Asian immigrants, etc. Our culture looked down upon the Vietnamese because they were simpler than us, just as Europe and Marlow looked down on the Africans.
The trouble is, we learned after our conflict in Vietnam that even the simple people have the capabilities to come out on top. Willard from Apocalypse Now notices the difference between the American R & R and Charlies R & R, Charlie is dug in too deep or moving too fast. His idea of R&R was cold rice and a little rat meat. He had only two ways home, death or victory. (Captain Willard). The Vietnamese had more on the line. Coppola makes a point to show us that the Chief of a boat armed to the teeth was killed by a native in a tree who threw a spear.
Not even an "advanced" Navy boat can defend it self against some simple natives armed only with spears. This opens Captain Willard's eyes to the horror of the situation he now finds himself in. Even more intriguing, however, is the similarity between the transformation of the characters in Apocalypse Now, and the cast and crew that created it. In the documentary, Hearts of Darkness (a documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now), Coppola's wife becomes the narrator and Francis appears to be the Kurtz as he is shown to become fully consumed by his creation. Eleanor repeatedly calls the making of Apocalypse Now a journey into Coppola's inner self. Coppola, like Kurtz, is regarded as a deity.
While Willard stalks Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, Coppola stalks himself, raising questions which he feels compelled to answer but cannot, finally announcing his desire to "shoot himself. As the budget soared, as the producers worried, as the crew and actors grew restless and dispassionate, Coppola worried that he did not have what it takes to finish the film. He struggled with the ending, with his own creative ability, and with his sense of purpose. Martin Sheen, who plays Captain Willard, is the one who really faces the horror. During the filming he has a nervous breakdown and later a heart attack. Some of his co-actors believed that Martin was becoming Captain Willard, and was experiencing the same journey of self-discovery.
We all posses a good and an evil side, and no culture, not matter how advanced, is exempt from that fact. This discovery often causes madness as this evil side is allowed out. Only those who have completed the journey into self can understand the actions of people such as Kurtz. They are alone in this world of horror. Both Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness deal with the understanding of ones self in the midst of pure evil.
The two stories, despite their settings and slight story line difference, are same in conveying the misconceptions of society and the capabilities it has to transform us all. Kurtz saw the evil in both America and in Europe. Perhaps we too are blinded by our own evil. Works Cited Apocalypse Now. Francis Ford Coppola. 1979 Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness.
W. W. Norton Company, Inc. , New York, 1988.
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