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Apocalypse now heart of darkness comparison essay
Compare and contrast the novel Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse
Apocalypse now heart of darkness comparison essay
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Relationship is a word used in a multitude of situations. The dictionary definition states that a relationship is the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected. Relationships are vital to the narrative of Things Fall Apart, The Heart of Darkness, and Apocalypse Now. The relationships within the texts show character development and are what keeps the story moving. Relationships expand your experience as a reader, for you can compare your own experiences to that of the text. Not only can you find relationships within the texts themselves, but you can find them in the concepts and characters between each text. They have you on your toes, keeping you intrigued and guessing what will happen next. For example, in my time …show more content…
Throughout the orientation of each text you can find some similarities. The mirrored relationships that Marlow and Willard experience with Kurtz is just one example. The orientation of Heart of Darkness is when Marlow first hears about Kurtz and becomes obsessed with him His relationship with Kurtz begins to bloom, even though it is purely cognitive. He believes that Kurtz is the answer to all of the questions and problems he has been facing. For instance, he is captivated by the thought of his voice and thinks that once he hears Kurtz speak it will silence the eeriness of the jungle. He knows that it is his job to bring Kurtz back so he sets off on his mission. Whereas in Apocalypse Now, the orientation is nearly identical. Willard …show more content…
In Heart of Darkness, the men aboard the steamboat go into the jungle in constant fear of what is around them. Their apprehension is so strong that a sense of anxiety grows within them - a fear of the wilderness, with its eerie silences and addling fogs, its mysterious darkness and shadowy savages. For instance, in the beginning of the novel, the white pilgrims aboard hear sounds when they are in their sleeping quarters. "We capered on the iron deck. A frightful clatter came out of that hulk, and the virgin forest on the other bank of the creek sent it back in a thundering roll upon the sleeping station. It must have made some of the pilgrims sit up in their hovels" (Conrad 29-30). Ironically, the noise they were hearing was only a celebration of the fellow men aboard the boat. Being so far from any sign of civilization only adds to their sense of helplessness and hopelessness. Their fear makes them do foolish things on impulse, similar to that of Okonkwo. Fear also contributes to their consequent madness. It infuses the mind itself so that everything is not only terror-inducing, but morally disturbing as well. In Apocalypse Now, Chief has a prominent sense of fear and concern that something dreadful is going to happen. This affects his relationships with his fellow crew mates and eventually pushes him away from Willard, particularly after he kills the Vietnamese woman at the
Kurtz in both works is surprising very similar; in Apocalypse Now Walt Kurtz is a Colonel in the United States Army. Kurtz is a highly recognized and admired military officer, "Walt Kurtz was one of the most outstanding officers this country has ever produced. He was a brilliant and outstanding in every way…” and has a very successful career in the army (Coppola 1979). The Kurtz in Heart of Darkness is a successful business man, politician, and explorer. This Kurtz wears the mask of many faces but all the characters that mention Kurtz treat him like a god. It’s these traits that cultivate curiosity within Marlow and Captain Willard. Ma...
Marlow and Willard seem like two epitomes of every people in the world. They are nobodies and have not strong power. However, they still have some difference. Marlow is a bystander but Willard is soldier. So he is both a bystander and a firsthand participator in the war. For Willard, “When I was here, I wanted to be there; when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle” (IMDb 1). Hence, Willard has a double identity to have a profound reflection of inhumane war and frangible human nature. Meanwhile, the film also keeps Kurtz’s name in Heart of Darkness. The novella and the film all introduce Kurtz by other people’s talking or other materials to create mystery. Kurtz has different backgrounds in the two works but they all come from the traditional civilized society. In the novella, Kurtz has European descent “All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz” (Conrad 4). In the film, Kurtz graduates from West Point and gains countless medals. Two Kurtz are convinced by people that they are civilized people, but the cruel realizations change them. Their behaviors are like wild animals and lose reason and morality. It is the decay of humanitarian in the realization because utterly false and hypocrisy social mores lead the evil human
Relationships play an important role in one's life. They are formed on the basis of love and understanding. Relationship helps various people in every aspect of life and assists them in being a better person. Such a relationship was found in the novel
the nonspecific or universal role of relationships been analyzed in the context of the larger novel.
Willard, on the other hand, is a psychological mess from the beginning of the film. The opening scenes depict him confessing his own mental imbalances as a result of prolonged service in the Vietnam War. While Conrad’s Marlow borders on complacency, Coppola’s Willard behaves erratically and without reason. His fascination with Kurtz is also less profound than in Heart of Darkness. According to literary scholar and cinema aficionado Mark A. Rivera, “In Conrad, Marlow is in awe of Kurtz, comes to identify with him in some dark recess of his own psyche; Willard, on the other hand, is more impressed with Kurtz's credentials than moved by his force of mind and will.”
What is the meaning of the word “relationship”? Most of us hear this word every day, in other words “a state of affairs existing between those having relations and dealings. There are four types of relationships: couple, family, and friend. Most of the relationships can be difficult, romantic relationship seem to be the most complicated types. Sometimes two lovers can care for each others, yet they cannot talk to each others. When a problem occurs between two people for a long time, it most likely will get to a fight and most of the time to end the relationship. While watching The Break-Up movie, showed a lot of elements of the interpersonal relationships. The movie talked about two couple stayed together for a long time. And they started to fight about minor stuff that leads to end the relationship.
While there are differences between Francis Ford Coppola’s film, Apocalypse Now!, and Joseph Conrad novel, The Heart of Darkness, Kurtz and his influence on the main character remain very similar. Both the movie and novel depict a protagonist’s struggle to travel upstream in a ship in search of a man named Kurtz. While doing so, Marlow (The Heart of Darkness)/Willard (Apocalypse Now!) become progressively fascinated with Kurtz. Kurtz is claimed to have a profound influence on his followers and is becoming a huge influence on Marlow/Willard as well.
Throughout Heart of Darkness, the protagonist is constantly stating the importance of working and keeping busy. On pages 109 and 110, Marlow is travelling down the river with a fireman. Marlow is busy repairing various mechanical problems the steamboat is having. The fireman is helping him and Marlow comments on how good of a job he is doing. This indicates that Marlow appreciates a good worker.
When an individual travels into unknown territory, their greatest chance of survival is in gaining an understanding of the land and the people that inhabit it. The natives are the people who understand the location and what simple missteps could lead to death. The natives live in a world different from the travelers, and the knowledge they carry is greater than anything brought from home. How a character adapts to the environment influences their survival and what they retain after returning home. In Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and State of Wonder by Ann Patchett the main characters must adjust to being in an unknown location or face death. The narrators of State of Wonder and Heart of Darkness journey into unfamiliar territory, however
The plots of these two works are parallel. In Apocalypse Now, Willard, like Marlow, is sent on a mission. However, he is sent to kill Col. Kurtz, whereas Marlow is asked to bring him back with him. Apocalypse Now presents Kurtz as a psych...
In his novel Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad portrays the role of a woman to be the source that the man relies on when he can no longer bear the harsh realities of the world, and utilizes the idealistic world she creates to obtain a small sliver of hope for the future. He uses the character Kurtz, a European captain who is searching for ivory in the heart of the Congo in Africa, to display how a man will need a woman and her world in order to keep his sanity. When entering the world of the woman, the man will be able to find comfort because he is able to take a break from the real world and find solace in the world of the woman, using her as an audience to display his emotions to. The solace that the man finds in the woman is a way to keep his sanity because the truths that one discovers may leave one with pain and emotions that can drive him mad, while a woman's separate world may cause one to become blind from the actualities of society, the temporary blindness will help not only a man but also the woman to continue to have high hopes and ambitions in order to save themselves from falling into the wrath of reality and succumbing to the darkness that may cause one to fall victim to savagery due to embracing too much pain that comes from the reality.
Heart of Darkness is a kind of little world unto itself. The reader of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness should take the time to consider this work from a psychological point of view. There are, after all, an awful lot of heads and skulls in the book, and Conrad goes out of his way to suggest that in some sense Marlow's journey is like a dream or a return to our primitive past--an exploration of the dark recesses of the human mind.
In "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," Chinua Achebe criticizes Joseph Conrad for his racist stereotypes towards the continent and people of Africa. He claims that Conrad propagated the "dominant image of Africa in the Western imagination" rather than portraying the continent in its true form (1793). Africans were portrayed in Conrad's novel as savages with no language other than grunts and with no "other occupations besides merging into the evil forest or materializing out of it simply to plague Marlow" (1792-3). To Conrad, the Africans were not characters in his story, but merely props. Chinua Achebe responded with a novel, Things Fall Apart: an antithesis to Heart of Darkness and similar works by other European writers. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe tells the story of an Ibo man, Okonkwo, and the tragedies which he has to endure. Africans are represented as individuals capable of speech, not just one massive conglomerate of natives. Their customs are not regarded as eccentric or bizarre, but as the norm-functioning no differently than the variety of Western customs do. And the land itself is described as a mix of towns and farms, not a mysterious land which breeds insanity. In almost every respect, Things Fall Apart contradicts the stereotypes set up in Heart of Darkness.
Beckoning readers closer, the gloomy foreboding of a mysterious darkness has typically been indicative of an antagonist or a horror that is to follow, and the glory of a shining light has signified a positive connotation. The pair is often utilized to express an author’s ideas and theme and Joseph Conrad uses the two paradigms liberally in his interpretation of European colonialism in Heart of Darkness. While Conrad employs the typical binary of light and darkness as positive and negative forces, respectively, he also challenges this notion by exposing the contradictions of misdeeds done in light and the portrayal of darkness as a sanctuary.
The "Heart of Darkness," written by Joseph Conrad in 1899 as a short story, is about two men who face their own identities as what they consider to be civilized Europeans and the struggle to not to abandon their themselves and their morality once they venture into the "darkness." The use of "darkness" is in the book's title and in throughout the story and takes on a number of meanings that are not easily understood until the story progresses. As you read the story you realize that the meaning of "darkness" is not something that is constant but changes depending on the context it used.