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.
Conrad's 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 Kurtz's 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 Kurtz's 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.
Kmart, contrarily, entered behind Wal-Mart as the second largest retailer in the United States after Sears’ reign. They, however, suffered a similar affliction to what felled Sears when Kmart ruled discount retail so heavily that they seemed almost unstoppable. However, with lack of solid knowledge on the business’ purpose and Wal-Mart as a strong competitor, there began a steep decline, along with Sears, that led to filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (New York Times 2002).
Over one hundred years ago, an entrepreneur named Sebastian Spering Kresge opens his first retail store in 1899. The store was named Five-and-Dime and was located in downtown Detroit. The store was named Five-and-Dime because everything in the store was priced at either five cents or ten cents. This low price gained him a lot of customers and a lot of publicity. With this new found publicity, in 1912, he opened 85 more stores with annual sales of $10 million. As time went on, the prices have changed to $1 or less, but the business philosophy has remained the same. Around this time, the retail environment was getting very competitive, and the company needed to make some changes to keep up. In 1959, Kresge hired Harry B. Cunningham to become the president of the company. Under Cunningham leadership, the first Kmart store was opened in 1962 in Garden City, Michigan. In 1966, sales in 162 Kmart stores and Kresge stores topped the $1 billion mark and in 1968, the S. S. Kresge aired its first T.V. commercial. In 1976, Kresge made history by opening 271 Kmart stores in 1 year and becoming the first ever retailer to launch 17 million square feet of sales space in a single year. By 1977, nearly 95% of the S. S. Kresge sales were generated by Kmart so the company officially decided to change its name to Kmart Corporations. In 1991, Kmart opened the first supercenter in Medina, Ohio offering a full-service grocery area. In 1996, a complete redesign of Kmart was launched, changing its name to Big Kmart [or BigK] and in 1999, Kmart launch a new internet presence, named bluelight.com [now known as kmart.com]. In 2002, Kmart filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. (Corpor...
This goal of this analysis is to shadow some light on K-Mart and Target and with the help of extensive research. In this analysis we can find out what each company can do, where they lack and what has to be done in order to keep the company profitable and alive. Thus, we will try to look at the Target wholly and then it will identify a successful business strategy and thus show that the strategy has moved the Target into one of such leaders in the industry. When we will take a look at K-Mart and then we will move on the identification of a failed business strategy and then show that the strategy has been holding this company at the back. After that we will try to perform a cross- case analysis by contrasting and comparing the case studies on the points of difference and the parity. This will help us in looking at a side by side difference of a SWOT analysis and also the five force analysis.
The retail stores of JC Penney and Sears have face headlines of “Which is Worst: JCP or Sears?” The end maybe near for both companies (Andersen2014). The customers look at the employees like their idiots. The public believes that poor management is the reason for the down fall of these companies. Eddie Lambert and Ron Johnson are the CEO’s of being credited to running these companies with wrong management strategies (Andersen 2014). Ron Johnson who is now the former CEO was highly qualified with his retail instincts tried to run the store like a retail boutique. He never took the time to consult a survey on what the consumer’s thought were and after two years he jeopardized the company (Andersen 2014). Whereas the CEO Eddie Lambert of Sears
At the beginning, the two works have plentiful the same “story” (Dorall 303). Heart of Darkness tells a story about Marlow, a young captain. He reserves a commission to research Kurtz. Kurtz is an ivory trader, who works for a Belgian trading company and loses in the Congo jungles. Apocalypse Now’s background is Vietnam War. An American captain Willard gets a mission
Based on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness written in the late- Victorian era, Apocalypse Now! gives a modern interpretation of the novella. Francis Ford Coppola’s film takes place in Vietnam War where he examines America’s foreign policies in the 1960’s. Conrad, on the other hand, recreates the effects of British colonialism in Africa. Both protagonists, Willard from Apocalypse Now! and Marlow from Heart of Darkness, travel upstream along the massive trees that hug the banks on a mission to find Kurtz. As they travel further into the heart of darkness, they forget about the rules and regulations of society, and experience the absurdities of evil and savage nature of the jungle and war. The similarities and contrasts between Willard and Marlow are worth further examination to see their transitions as characters, responses to foreign land, and causes and effects of meeting Kurtz.
Comparing Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now Heart of Darkness, written by Joseph Conrad, and "Apocalypse Now," a movie directed by Francis Coppola, are two works that parallel one another but at the same time reflect their own era in time and their creator's own personal feelings and prejudices. "Apocalypse Now" was released in 1979 after two years in the making, as Coppola's modern interpretation to Joseph Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness (Harris). Conrad's book is an excellent example of the advances writers and philosophers made in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This advance deals with civilized humanity's ability to be prepared for and know the unknown. (Johnson) Comparatively, Copolla's movie did the same in the late 1970's.
Kurtz was an English man who traveled to the Congo in search of excitement, money and experience. To many people back home, he was known to be a loving intelligent young man. In Congo he was also known as being very intelligent, but also as being insane. The question is what happened to Kurtz how and why he let his self go insane. In a way you can say that he found the “heart” of his “darkness,” embraced it and could not escape it.
...s of the jungle, which sought to swallow him whole like the snake devouring its prey, sending it deeper within its body digesting it by stripping it of its layers one by one, paralleling the snake-like qualities of the river that drew Marlow deeper and deeper into its dark nothingness. And just like the Ancient Mariner, who is doomed to tell his tale for the rest of his life for the sake of penitence, Marlow, too, seems to retell his story of the tragic loss of innocence, of death and rebirth. Regardless of how many times the story had been told before it got to the narrator who eventually transcribed the events, it is one of great importance. It tells us that we must not judge a book by its cover, regardless of how convinced we may be of what is inside.
Marlow stands on the Thames River and remarks that the land he and his comrades is standing on was once a place of darkness and an uncivilized wilderness
Marlow embarks on a journey to be the captain of a small steamboat to navigate the Congo river for a trading company. On ...
Sears Holdings is a company built upon the heritage of Kmart and Sears stores, owner of many well-known brands, and is the provider of auto care and home remodeling. The company’s key operations are the stores in which it operates under the Kmart and Sears brands. Almost every state in the country has at least one Sears or Kmart store, and some U.S. territories also have locations. The company operates in the retail market, which is a highly lucrative industry, but has lost its ability to produce profits and to take charge as a leader in American
Read the short Kmart case study on pages 161-162 carefully and answer the following questions:
Francis Coppola’s movie Apocalypse Now was inspired by the world famous Joseph Conrad novel Heart of Darkness. A comparison and contrast can be made between the two. Both have similar themes but entirely different settings. Heart of Darkness takes place on the Congo River in the Heart of Africa, while Apocalypse Now is set in Vietnam.
As Marlow passes through the waters of the Congo, it is easily visible the trouble of the natives. “Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth half coming out, half effaced with the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair.” (20) Show that the holding of these colonies has started. The soldiers have come in and taken the inhabitants and are destroying them and taking from them the one thing they deserve over everything, life. The imperialists seem to not care about the Africans and are just there for their land.