Term Paper on "Apocalypse Now Redux and the Heart"

Term Paper 4 pages (1370 words) Sources: 0

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Apocalypse Now Redux and the Heart of Darkness

One of the central themes of both Joseph Conrad's book, Heart of Darkness, and Francis Ford Coppola's film, Apocalypse Now Redux, is that the Kurtz character comes to be criticized for continuing to do what he had done previously under company/army control, but was now doing on his own authority and doing more successfully. The difference is that now he is acting out of madness. They object not to what is being done, but to the way it is being done, and the fact that they are no longer in control, because Kurtz is insane. Both situations provide the possibility for endless abuse of power by foreigners in a primitive jungle setting, a setting which tends to bend their minds and release their dormant savage energies. Heart of Darkness depicts gun-crazy members of "the Company" firing wildly upon anything and everything as they progress up the river. Likewise the men in the patrol boat rigid (PBR) in Apocalypse Now Redux, act even more brutally, due to the circumstances of the Viet Nam War.

The dominant theme of Heart of Darkness is man's vulnerability to his own darker nature and the various ways in which this terrible, savage, proto-man can be unleashed; power, the jungle, "the Company," all serve as catalysts for the emergence of this hidden, voracious id-thing within us all, most realized in Kurtz. In Apocalypse Now Redux, Coppola is right on target in exploring this theme, his choice of Viet Nam in the sixties providing all the requisite elements: madness, power, the jungle, and "the Company" are all present, the latter being represented by the United States (U.S.) Army, or perhaps the U.S.A. As a whole. This last touch is ingenious, as it calls up a whole series of speculations regarding the various forms of imperialism. In Conrad, set at the turn of the century, the imperialism is traditional, overt. In Coppola, the U.S. presence is just as overt, yet the pretense upon which it is based is more ideological, geopolitical.

At the time Heart of Darkness was written, the British Empire was at its peak, and Britain controlled colonies and dependencies all over the planet. The popular saying that "the sun never sets on the British Empire" was literally true. The main topic of Heart of Darkness is imperialism, a nation's policy of exerting influence over other areas through military, political, and economic coercion. The narrator expresses the mainstream belief that imperialism is a glorious and worthy enterprise. Indeed, in Conrad's time, "empire" was one of the central values of British subjects, the fundamental term through which Britain defined its identity and sense of purpose.

As Marlow journeys up the river toward the Inner Station, he catches occasional glimpses of native villages along the riverbanks. More often, though, he simply hears things: drums, chants and howls. These engage his imagination, and the fact that they do so troubles him, because it suggests, as he says, a "kinship" with these men, whom he has so far been able to classify as "inhuman." This moment is one of several in the text in which Marlow seems to admit the limits of his own perception. These moments allow for a reading of Heart of Darkness that is much more critical of colonialism and much more ironic about the stereotypes it engenders. Nevertheless, it is important to notice that Marlow still casts Africans as a primitive version of himself rather than as potential equals. "It was unearthly, and the men were - No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it - the suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity - like yours -- the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the… READ MORE

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