Example research essay topic: Heart Of Darkness Good And Evil - 1,284 words

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Comparative Essay between Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now The ties between Joseph Conrad's book, Heart of Darkness and Francis Coppola's movie, Apocalypse Now are unmistakable. Apocalypse Now's accuracy in 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 apparent.

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 humans. In The Heart of Darkness, Marlow speaks of Fresleven who was killed in a fight with some natives. The argument between Fresleven and the natives was over some chickens, and Fresleven felt he had been ripped off in the deal.

Marlow describes Fresleven as the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs. (p. 13 Conrad) However, later in the same paragraph Marlow says, he probably felt the need at last of asserting his self-respect in some way. Therefore he whacked the old nigger mercilessly. (p. 13 Conrad) Soldiers in combat are forced to bring the evil within themselves out every time they go into battle. The scene in Apocalypse Now where Captain Willard first meets Lt. Colonel Kilgore exhibits the power combat has in bringing out the dark side in humans. The attitude the soldiers have towards their enemy in the scene shows how evil humans can be. Kilgore demonstrates his dark side when he tosses the death cards on to the bodies of the dead Vietcong without showing any remorse over the death of fellow humans.

The Vietcong were his enemies, but they were no less human. Another example of the movie expressing good an evil is when General Corman says, Because theres a conflict in every human heart between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil. The good does not always triumph. Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature.

This quote explains what General Corman believes is the good and evil in every human and how the good is the rational thinking. While the evil is the irrational thinking. The style in which Coppola has directed the movie is a total adaptation of Conrad's thought, the story being told through the eyes of the main character (Marlow in the novel, Willard in the movie). This narrative style has been very effective in both the book and the movie.

It gave the movie a feel of history being told through an encounter by Willard. Traditional interpretations of light and darkness tend to correlate light with goodness and purity, and darkness with evil and corruption. Marlow describes his interpretation of the darkness in his journey with these words, True, by this time it was not a blank space any morea place of darkness. But there was in it one river especially, a 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 lathe snake had charmed me. (p. 11) However, in Heart of Darkness, the definitions of lightness and darkness has been reversed.

Darkness can be interpreted to stand for the purity and innocence of the natives lifestyle, while lightness can be seen as the corruption, greed, and exploitative ways of the white men. The natives lived by the code of nature in a sort of darkness, in that they had not been exposed to the corruption of the civilized world. Some of the natives were enlightened to conform to live by the rules of the white men. One such native is described as a, product of the new forces at work. (p. 24 Conrad) This new enlightened class of armed natives worked to help the white men enslave their fellow tribesmen by escorting the captive men on work details at gunpoint. In the movie Apocalypse Now light and darkness are also portrayed in the sense that when ever the soldiers were going into an area occupied by the enemy it would be at a time of darkness, this would indicate that the darkness was a sign of evil and misfortune, somewhat the opposite of the book.

Although when the soldiers were attacked on the river it was midday which would imply that the light might really be the time of misfortune. Characterization in Coppola's movie has been an exact replica of Conrad's novel. The reader is first met with the character Marlow, who is observant and expressive in his story telling, just as in the book Cpt. Willard who is supposedly Marlow is sent into the jungle on a mission, which is to find Col. Kurtz, in the novel Marlow's mission becomes finding this mysterious Kurtz that he keeps hearing about. This brings us to the actual character of Kurtz, a man with a reputation for being powerful and mysterious in both novel and movie.

Coppola has not changed a thing when creating the character of Kurtz in the movie. Racism is clearly portrayed throughout the novel and movie in several different ways. Marlow shows a bit if his own racism when he says, It was Unearthly, and the men were No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of itis suspicion of their not being inhuman. (p. 59) this quote indicates exactly what Marlow's first though was upon seeing the lifestyle of the natives.

Another example, the influential white males are far from color blind in that random shooting takes place in both the book and the movie merely for the sake of killing the natives of each country respectively. The natives lifestyles are dramatically changed when their land is dominated by the overpowering white men. The whites expected the natives to follow and comply with their demands once the natives homelands were invaded, because the whites considered themselves civilized and thought of the natives as savages. Pigment of skin is used by the whites to rationalize their actions towards the natives. The plot in the movie has been changed slightly in order to agree with the times, but deep in the heart of it its the same. Simply put man goes into jungle, man fears the evil in the jungle, man goes to the heart of the evil.

Kurtz in both cases is the heart of the evil, in the novel he spreads his evil in the ways he runs the ivory trade and enslaves the natives. In the movies Kurtz shows his evil in the way he begins his own colony and becomes a devil god, using human examples of death to govern his tribe. Another similarity is the way Coppola has pictured military machinery that has been broken down. This is a way of symbolizing the breakdown of the white man. The American strength is in its machinery according to the movie, and the book uses a civilized way of life as the strength of the white man, in both cases they were beaten.

It can be said that Coppola's rendition of the Heart of Darkness is his modern view on history, converting it to suit the times. Both the novel and the movie Apocalypse Now show clearly that evil does not prevail, and oppression of other people is just not the way to see something through. a dark mirage. All quotes are taken from either the student copy of the novel or the movie which was watched in class

Research essay sample on Heart Of Darkness Good And Evil