Preview

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad vs. Apocalypse Now by Francis Coppola

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
629 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad vs. Apocalypse Now by Francis Coppola
Heart of Darkness V Apocalypse Now

The fictional novel Heart of Darkness by author Joseph Conrad is a book written in first person. The setting of the novel is in the Congo Jungle, with most of the book occurring on the Congo River. The novel describes Marlow’s story and his many strange encounters while traveling up the Congo River. Marlow is on a mission to retrieve the very successful ivory merchant Kurtz, who has been separated from his company. Heart of Darkness deals with themes of colonialism, racism, and savagery. While also exploring the potential darkness that can be seen in the heart of man. Apocalypse Now is a movie directed by Francis Coppola came out in 1979. It is set at the height of the Vietnam War. U.S. Army Captain Willard is sent on a top secret mission into the jungles of Cambodia. His mission is to seek out and destroy Colonel Kurtz, who is believed to have gone completely insane. The novel Heart of Darkness and the movie Apocalypse Now have many parallels. Both works follow the same story line but presented in completely different contexts. Even though Apocalypse Now is based upon the book, there are still many differences in themes, characters, and events. The largest of these differences is the setting and time of the two works. While watching Apocalypse Now the viewer is able to observe many scenes that are similar with the novel Heart of Darkness. One of the most apparent of these scenes is when the natives attack the men on the boats. After the attack Coppola and Conrad both use fog to show the uncertainty the characters have in regards to completing their tasks.
The men in the novel begin to randomly shoot into the jungle once the attack begins. They are unable to see their attackers so they are shooting completely blind. After the attack is over a large cloud of smoke from the men’s guns floating in front of the boat. Marlow then continues to lead the men of the boat blindly up the Congo River. In

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Both the book and the movie contain a few similarities between each other. Just like the book, the movie contains zombies that do not feel pain and that devour on the remaining human survivors. In both versions, the…

    • 429 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although one is a book and the other is a movie, both Apocalypse Now which is directed by Francis Ford Coppola and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad portray very detailed scenes by using various elements in their respective works. A key part that stands out is the events that lead to death of the helmsman which contains many similarities, but also many differences between the two works. Some similarities like the iconic fog serve to convey a message of the helplessness that the characters feel because of the mystery of their surroundings and uncertainly of their mission.…

    • 890 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness has foreshadowing that adds a lot of suspense throughout the book. Conrad used foreshadowing through minor details that are not clearly stated and are to be interpreted as the book continues.…

    • 615 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The contexts of the extracts are very different to each other. In ‘Heart of Darkness’, Conrad expresses to the reader that when the novel was published in 1899, life in the Congo was quite dangerous, so when Marlow is attacked by the natives, while on the…

    • 1206 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Has anyone ever read two books that are based on the same topic, but told with different meanings through different authors? Society begins to put these connections together, and wonder why two authors views can be so different. Bowers writes, Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness and Dante’s Inferno, explaining the different views of Hell between Inferno and Heart Of Darkness. Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Dante’s Inferno by Dante Alighieri shows how two books can have different views on the same topic, through the moral principles, the government, and the overall view of Hell.…

    • 642 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    During the fall of 1988, staff members of a public hospital located in the city of Charleston by the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) became concerned by “an apparent increase in the use of cocaine by patients who were receiving prenatal treatment.” (Samaha, 2012, p. 252) In response to the increasing number, in April of 1989, MUSC instituted a drug testing policy. Women who came into MUSC that presented suspicion of drug use were subjected to the drug screenings. If the tests were positive, it was reported to police and the women were subsequently arrested. MUSC worked in conjunction with the Solicitor for Charleston in the prosecution of mothers whose children tested positive for drugs at birth.…

    • 925 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Joseph Conrad 's Heart of Darkness is both a dramatic tale of an arduous trek into the Belgian Congo at the turn of the twentieth century and a symbolic journey into the deepest recesses of human nature. On a literal level, through Marlow 's narration, Conrad provides a searing indictment of European colonial exploitation inflicted upon African natives. By employing several allegoric symbols this account depicts the futility of the European presence in Africa.…

    • 1032 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The iniquity of the hearts of men precipitates the moral and social depravity of the entire population. In Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, Marlow finds that barbarism and savagery are universal among nations, and that the common man is able to be influenced by the slightest of impulses. The distinctive evil that roams Europe soon pervades newly discovered Africa and allows the darkness to fill the land. The European colonizers brought not only civilization and enlightenment to the land of the Congo, but also savagery and utter corruption. Throughout his journey, Marlow learns of the darkness of human kind, their hearts, and their minds through…

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Olaudah Equiano 's The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself, is the story of the eponymous real-life character, Olaudah Equiano, his life, trials, tribulations and journey from slavery at an early age to freedom. For Equiano, it seems that slavery is almost a metaphysical phenomenon. His entire life is essentially characterized by the different experiences relating slavery, from Africa to the Middle Passage to plantation life in the West Indies and United States. Equiano’s views on slavery are tough to articulate and truly complex. Throughout the novel he makes reference to different ‘degrees of slavery,’ at times condemning the practice, and at other times contradicting himself and seemingly lauding it. I believe that his conflicting views are products of his first hand experience with nearly all aspects of the practice, and near the end of the novel it is clear that he is in favor of ending slavery.…

    • 1134 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Marlow’s birth and childhood mimics the typical upbringing of a hero; the general absence of any remarkable activity and in fact seems quite ordinary, and is rarely touched on by Campbell. In the next stage of Marlow’s journey, a Supernatural Helper is required. Although he thinks her naïve, Marlow’s Aunt represents the Supernatural Helper, and uses her influence to gain Marlow a position on the boat. Marlow describes her as “determined to make no end of fuss to get me appointed skipper of a river steamboat" (Conrad 7).…

    • 1342 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the beginning of the novel, Heart of Darkness, the story takes place outside of London, England, on thee Thames River. This is pictured to be a peaceful and civilized place. ‘The sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light" (Conrad p16), further introduces the civilized Thames to be bright, pure, and good. As Marlow's journey continues, he later discovers the darkness, or evil, that is represented by the mysterious and unknown dangers of the jungle environment. While Marlow is in the beginning of his journey throughout the Belgian Congo, his route, the river, is observed as "Flames glided in the river…pursuing, overtaking" (Conrad p20). The river is displayed as a river of fire, similar to the rivers of fire in the depths of hell. Man views hell as being synonymous with evil, as does Conrad. He uses this as a device to foreshadow the upcoming events in which the Marlow is about to endure. As the story moves deeper into the jungle, the obscurity and unknown of the jungle begin to set in. "The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of over-shadowed distances." The darkness of the over-shadowed distances foreshadows the upcoming events in the novel. While the characters proceed up the river the certainty of their future becomes bleaker. Furthermore, as Kurtz is taking his last breaths and on the…

    • 1050 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Apocalypse Now’s accuracy in following the essential storyline of Heart of Darkness is more impressive despite the different contexts. The exploration of good versus evil and what prompts evil is perfectly portrayed. At the same time, the film also transmits the book’s message about the brutality and condemnation of imperialism. Therefore, Both works expose the evils of imperialism and of men bringing them into life.…

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Various parallels can be drawn when comparing and contrasting Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Frank Coppola's "Apocalypse Now", while taking into consideration Heart of Darkness is a novella and "Apocalypse Now" is a film. These differences and similarities can be seen in themes, characters, events and other small snippets of information including anything from quoted lines to strange actions of the main characters. Both pieces follow the same story line but they are presented in different contexts, allowing for many differences as well as the ability to see how Conrad is able to write a piece of literature that can be transposed to many different settings regardless the time period and still convey the same message of colonialism.…

    • 1879 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    fate in Heart of darkness

    • 2108 Words
    • 9 Pages

    The story that we are told in Heart of Darkness is actually a frame story full of symbolism that reveals some of the features by which modernist literature would come to be distinguished at the beginning of the 20th century. In that respect, the literary devices that are present in Heart of darkness, such as the relativism of perception heightened by symbolic density, the sharing of emotions with the reader, irony and allusions to myth are devices that would be found later in significant modernist works such as Eliot’s the waste land, Joyce’s Ulysses and Woolf’s Jacob’s room.…

    • 2108 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Apocalypse Now is loosely based on Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness. In the novel, the main character, Marlow, is taking a trip up the Congo River in Africa to meet the ivory hunter, Mr. Kurtz. Coppola’s movie is pretty faithful to the source material except in the portrayal of the character Willard, played by Martin Sheen. In the novel at the end of his ordeal in Africa, Marlow becomes embittered with society as a whole, where once he was a conforming member of it. As the movie begins, Willard is already at that stage in his story arc, but has a few vestiges of civilization left.…

    • 526 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays