“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.
In similar ways the setting shaped the main characters into who they are. The character Marlow in Heart of Darkness is similar to Willard in the movie. Marlow tells the story in the Heart of Darkness. He is a sailor trying to find the mysterious Kurtz, and he gradually becomes more and more obsessive of him as the plot progresses. The movie is in more or less the same way. Willard is a soldier on a mission to exterminate Colonel Kurtz. However, as he gradually obtains more and more information on him, his opinions start to change about him. Marlow and Willard are both trying to meet Kurtz in one way or another, and have developed similar personalities. They are both displayed in a positive viewpoint, being the main protagonists of the book and movie, respectively. They also develop similar character qualities: tough, courageous, down to earth, and independent. Their characters are very likeable; as a reader/viewer, most opinions are based off their perspective (point of view). However, despite these similarities, the director chose to change Willard slightly. For example, a movie is much shorter than a book so character development is...
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...table intention. It looked at you with a vengeful aspect.” Although the time period and place were completely different, this description of the river is very similar to what the viewer experiences in the movie. The foreshadowing of the mist in both the movie and book show something bad is about to happen: the ambush of the natives.
Thematic elements are also very similar, ranging from imperialism to darkness to madness, as well as the exploration between good versus evil. The messages between evil show the terror between the effects of imperialism and the madness of humanity. Yet, both the book and the movie display these effects neither dramatic nor happening quickly. As T.S. Eliot's Hollow Men says relating to the “Apocalypse”, “this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper.”
The similarities are prolific in their presence in certain parts of the novel, the very context of both stories shows similarities, both are dealing with an oppressed factor that is set free by an outsider who teaches and challenges the system in which the oppressed are caught.
The Massacre River was, in fact, Danticat’s inspiration to write the book (Wachtel 108). She sees the river as “both sad and comforting” in Hispaniola’s history (Wechtel 107). The river is both a site of grief and a site of hope. Although so many people have died in the river, Haitians still use it to “cleanse their labor’s residue off their bodies, reconnect with their community, and pay homage to their dead” (Shemak 96). Danticat also sees the river as dividing between torment and hope (Bell xi). This idea of water being both divisive and comforting is prominent throughout the novel.
Throughout the course of my senior English career, there aren’t any texts I’ve read that have affected me as deeply as Lord of the Flies or Heart of Darkness. Not only are they shocking and saddening at face value, but once you realize the symbols represented by their most famous scenes, they become so much more than words on paper. These texts become testaments to the faults of humanity on a global scale. These aren’t your average symbols of some romantic idea. When the realization hits you, you can almost feel it. But, with how different these two works are, can they have similar messages about humanity? As a matter of fact, they do. The shared messages about the human condition in The Lord of The Flies by William Golding and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad are that there is evil in all of us, we all lose our innocence, and we are manipulative.
There will never be two books that are exactly same, but readers will often find that some books may have characters who share the same qualities, ideas, and personalities. But then, there will be books where the characters are exact opposites of each other. In Lord of the Flies and Into the Wild, there are characters who have absolutely no similarities whatsoever. We have Jack, from Lord of the Flies, who is a shy, sensitive, sheltered boy. We also have Christopher Johnson McCandless, from Into the Wild, who is an intelligent, idealistic young man. Even though they both have to do with being alone, the characters are so different. During this essay, the two books will be compared and contrasted on the differences.
but deep in the heart of it its the same. Kurtz in both cases is the heart of the evil, in the novel he spreads his evil in the ways he runs the ivory trade and enslaves the natives. In the movies Kurtz shows his evil in the way he begins his own colony and becomes a devil god, using human examples of death to govern his "tribe". Another similarity is the way Coppola has pictured military machinery that has been broken down. This is a way of symbolizing the breakdown of the white man. The American strength is in it's machinery according to the movie, and the book uses a civilized way of life as the strength of the white man, in both cases they were conquered. Both the novel and the movie Apocalypse Now show clearly that evil does not control, and cruelty of other people is just not the way to see something through, a dark dream.
Books and movies present stories in different ways because the medias are incredibly different. In the story Heart of Darkness, the author takes the motif of the journey and presents it in the third person in a way that people could understand with the topic of the spread of culture in the “third world.” Apocalypse Now shows the journey in a completely different way. It is made into a first person narrative and is changed from colonization to the modern day equivalent of the Vietnam War. Both ways of showing the story keeps the main idea of the journey both inside and outside, but the way of presenting it is very different.
1. The protagonist of Heart of Darkness is a person named Charlie Marlow. Oddly, his name only appears once in the novel. Marlow is philosophical, independent-minded, and generally skeptical of those around him. He is also a master storyteller, eloquent and able to draw his listeners into his tale. Although Marlow shares many of his fellow Europeans’ prejudices, he has seen enough of the world and enough debased white men to make him skeptical of imperialism. An example of Marlow being independent-minded and philosophical is when he takes a trip up a river, as a break from working on ships. Marlow describes the trip as a journey back in time, to a “prehistoric earth.” This remark on how he regards colonized people as primitive, which is his philosophical viewpoint.
...ers were portrayed in both of these stories. Each character has a personal story that most people can relate do on a couple different levels. A common thread can be found in each of these books. It is easy to relate with these characters because no matter when these stories were written, the themes can be timeless. Parts and pieces of the novels can still be found in our world today and in our day to day life. Perseverance and courage is a trait that can be brought away from reading both of these books.
Another similarity in the book and movie is that the characters have to go against their morals in order to decide what to do in certain situations. An example of this in the book is when Skip realises he would have to trespass and steal in order for him to keep himself and his friends alive. Or in...
1. Chapter 3, page 5, #3: “A little fog hung over the river so that as I neared it I felt myself becoming isolated from everything except the river and the few trees beside it. The wind was blowing more steadily here, and I was beginning to feel cold.”
In Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness, multiple characters change based off of the series of events that occur around them. The easiest character to pick out of the book is Marlow. At first, Marlow ventures out with the intention of civilizing the Congo, but as he arrives, he is in shock to see that there is absolutely no effort to edify the natives. "And also this," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the darkest places on earth" (Conrad 3). Here, Marlow comes to the realization of how human nature is inherently sinful through viewing how the natives are treated. As the book continues, Marlow's moral code becomes like those who he has surrounded himself with. For example, as the Helmsman is speared to death, Marlow acts in a
Even though these two books may seem very different, they also share many similarities. Though they are not related through their plots, they definitely share some very important themes and resemblance of characters. Through these similarities, two different stories in completely different time frames and locations can be brought together in many instances.
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.
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.
Comparisons and contrasts are important devices which an author may use to help convey his thoughts and feelings about a situation or an event. Joseph Conrad makes use of these devices in his novel Heart of Darkness. Throughout the novel when he was trying to convey a deeper meaning about a situation or a place, he would us a comparison or contrast. The comparative and contrasting themes in the story help to develop Conrad's ideas and feelings in the Heart of Darkness. Light verses dark, the Thames verses the Congo, the Savages compared to the civilized people, and the darkness of both worlds are all contrasts and comparisons that are important to the meaning as well as the understanding of this novel.