Parallels in Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now
In the interpretation and comparison of Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now there begins to unfold a list of similarities that can be linked to Arturian legend, particularly the quest of the grail. Marlow, or Willard can be viewed as the knight who has been sent on a mythic quest, the specific task being the recovery or assassination of Kurtz, the mythic god-man linked to the Fisher King in Arthurian romance. Conrad specifically modeled his novel on these legends, while Coppola expanded on the concept, using Conrad as a stepping off point and drawing from J.G. Frazer's The Golden Bough and J. Weston's From Ritual to Romance. I will examine the questers purpose for traveling into the heart of darkness, a void in the midst of a burgeoning jungle that has become a fecund waste land. View the quester as he comes in contact with a mysterious god-man or divine king whose own demise has contributed to the demise of the surrounding atmosphere, and how Marlow, and in turn Willard, deal with this figure, known as Kurtz. Finally I will discuss why Apocalypse Now fails as a recreation of Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
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The Task of the Hero
In Arthurian legend a certain task is placed, or rather imposed upon the grail hero, whether that hero be Gawain, Perceval, or Galahad. He sets out on a journey with no clear idea of the task before him, except that he, at the bidding of King Arthur, must find the grail, and that he is taking the place of a mysterious knight that set out before him but was killed. The quest of the grail eventually gives way, as the story unfolds, to the knights healing of the Fisher King (the watcher of the grail), who has fallen gravely ill and w...
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... sun beats,
And the dead tree gives us no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
(Eliot)
Works Cited
Conrad, Joseph Heart of Darkness, New York, Penguin Books 1983
Weston, Jessie L. From Ritual to Romance, New Jersey, Princeton Press 1993
Frazer, James G. The Golden Bough(abridged version), New York, Macmillian Publishing Company, 1950
Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte d'Arthur, Oxford Press, 1967
Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land and Other Poems, New York, London, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1988
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.
Eliot, T.S. The wasteland. In The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume II. Edited by Paul Lauter et al. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1991: 1447-1463.
“Under an overcast sky — seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.” This is the last line of the book Heart of Darkness and it summed up the setting and tone of the book. Apocalypse Now is an epic war film made in 1979 set in Vietnam directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It is based on the book Heart of Darkness. The settings of both the book and the movie are very different; they take place in completely different places. However, their effects are very similar to each other and shown in a variety of ways: in character development, cultural aspects, as well as thematically.
Nuclear weapons continue to present a real threat to humanity and other life on Earth. Scholars of international relations and policymakers share in the belief that the sheer power and destructiveness of nuclear weapons prevent them from being used by friends and foes alike. Then the real question becomes; what is the need for nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons are defined as, volatile device that originates its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release massive amounts of energy from fairly small amounts of matter. Nuclear weapons have greatly changed the way war is fought. Along with these more dominant weapons come ways to control and countermeasure such power. Nuclear weapons have changed the way the world thinks about war. The development of nuclear weapons started rather innocently as a physical wonder but has become a basis of constant fear among many nations.
In conclusion, there are different opinions on the issue of the use of nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is only one of many energy options. Nuclear power can decrease pollution to the environment because it does not produce harming gases like other plants do. However, there are also drawbacks that can influences human health by emitting radioactive substances. Thus, all parties should make a deeper research and analysis based on the argument to decide the use of nuclear energy as a safe and cost effective source of energy.
I chose to do this essay on the idea of story adaptation, and why changes are made to a story. I originally wanted to look at it just in terms of Apocalypse Now, and how the story of Heart of Darkness was updated to fit a different environment and time period, while still being true to many of the events, characters, ideas and themes presented in the story. I was curious about what changes were made, and what that indicated about how the director, and maybe society as a whole, felt about some concept that maybe were no longer acceptable or satisfactory.
In the opening scenes of the documentary film "Hearts of Darkness-A Filmmaker's Apocalypse," Eleanor Coppola describes her husband Francis's film, "Apocalypse Now," as being "loosely based" on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Indeed, "loosely" is the word; the period, setting, and circumstances of the film are totally different from those of the novella. The question, therefore, is whether any of Conrad's classic story of savagery and madness is extant in its cinematic reworking. It is this question that I shall attempt to address in this brief monograph by looking more closely at various aspects of character, plot, and theme in each respective work.
Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now & nbsp; 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 emerge. In the novel the horror reflects Kurtz's tragedy of transforming into a ruthless animal. The film The Horror has more of a definite meaning, reflecting the war and all the barbaric fighting that is going on. & nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp 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.
As Marlow assists the reader in understanding the story he tells, many inversions and contrasts are utilized in order to increase apperception of the true meaning it holds. One of the most commonly occurring divergences is the un orthodox implications that light and dark embody. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness brims with paradoxes and symbolism throughout its entirety, with the intent of assisting the reader in comprehending the truth of not only human nature, but of the world.
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.
The question “what is, or should be, the function of nuclear weapons?” for me is an easy question to answer, there should be no function for them. I find no need for nuclear weapons in the post-cold war era; they are massive genocide machines that have no use in today’s time. During the cold war I can easily find reasons for them to be used but the cold war is now over. But in reality it’s known that this is a huge dream and most likely will never be accomplished to rid the world of nuclear weapons, so in a realist point of view and for the purpose of this paper I’ll say that the only logical (yet not truly logical) means of using a nuclear weapon is through deterrence. In this paper I will talk about how I believe it should be done and what opponents to my view believe. I will also talk about how there are many complexities to nuclear strategy and it’s not as easy as just removing weapons. But the main focus on this paper is what should the function of a nuclear weapon be and that’s deterrence.
Both Conrad’s, “Heart of Darkness”, and Coppola’s, “Apocalypse Now”, profoundly illustrate the journey of man into their inner self and man’s encounters with their insanity, fears and demise. The novella and film are comprised of numerous pivotal themes that facilitate the understanding of the deeper meaning of both works. Fundamentally, theme is an extensive message or idea expressed by an author and is a crucial element of literature since it sheds light on universal concepts. The most striking parallels that can be formulated when comparing themes in both the novella and the film are associated with human nature. Specifically, Conrad and Coppola incorporate theme of hypocrisy in order to portray man’s incredible potential for evil.
The Cold War was a time of great tension all over the world. From 1945 to 1989, the United States was the leader and nuclear power and was competing with the Soviet Union to create huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons. However, even though the Cold War ended, nuclear weapons are still a threat. Countries around the world strive to create nuclear power, and they do not promise to use it for peaceful purposes. Some examples of the struggles caused by nuclear weapons include the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Iran’s recent nuclear weapon program. Surely, nuclear weapons have created conflict all over the world since the Cold War era.
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.
T.S Eliot, widely considered to be one of the fathers of modern poetry, has written many great poems. Among the most well known of these are “The Waste Land, and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, which share similar messages, but are also quite different. In both poems, Eliot uses various poetic techniques to convey themes of repression, alienation, and a general breakdown in western society. Some of the best techniques to examine are ones such as theme, structure, imagery and language, which all figure prominently in his poetry. These techniques in particular are used by Eliot to both enhance and support the purpose of his poems.