True horror is coming to terms with thing you cannot change. And not even necessarily coming to terms, but realizing what you have done and not being able to undo anything is an act of true horror. Also, horror lies in the fact that the reader, or at least myself, became uncomfortable as we learned that Kurtz’s last words were “the horror! the horror!” I was uncomfortable because that sting of regret and shame the reader has to deal with via second-hand, and Kurtz just gets to die; he doesn’t have to deal with that shame and disgust over what he’s done. Kurtz’s last words, “the horror! the horror!” perfectly exemplify how there is a duality of meanings even in just the two horror’s themselves, and those meanings are constantly changing too, My initial reading broke down “the horror! The horror!” into two parts. The first part was that it was Kurtz’s own initial response to “some vision.” The second part was that it is Kurtz’s response to his own response, which ultimately holds all the power in giving meaning because how we choose to interpret something in relation to our initial response showcases the processes of the mind that contribute to what we really think about something. So the second part of “the horror! The horror!” holds the most weight because not only does it provide emphasis, it shows that Kurtz is processing the information in front of him, albeit a little too late. In addition to my initial reading of this line, I thought about how the repetition really sheds light on how there is a constant duality of opposing forces of violence and benevolence, light and dark, colonizers and colonized, sane and insane, etc. Both horror’s actually being vocalized makes a clear distinction that they are at odds with each other while also emphasizing each other. In my most recent reading, this line could be about Kurtz being distraught over the fact that he’s done, his reign is over, making him completely selfish in his last words because he’s upset at himself that he lost control. Both of my readings can be the horror!” both articles seem to not only agree with what I have to say, but they only go so far to agree, whereas I take it a step further and look at the language itself to identify more than one meaning. Kurtz’s last words, even just the word by itself, “horror,” brings forth some kind of revelation. You only know something is true horror once you have seen it and have had at least some time to reflect on it. Kurtz is able to reach a revelation, but again, it is too late. However, even at the end of his life, being able to realize the atrocity of what has been done is a step in the right direction, however it does not cancel out what was
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.
Paul Santilli’s “Culture, Evil, and Horror” gives us several ideas of what horror means. Horror is a type of cultural breakdown. There is also a type of horror called Ontological Horror: “It is characterized as a disturbance before an indefinite and unnamed presence” (180). In the story “The Spider”, the men all suffered an ineluctable death. This story demonstrates an unnamed presence causing the loss of control.
The death of Kurtz is the biggest contrast of Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness. The death of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness is simple and no emotion is given by Marlow as he continued with his dinner. Marlow gave the reader the feeling as if this death was nothing of importance to the plot of the story. Compared to Coppola’s film where Willard fights a bloody battle and kills Kurtz with his machete while outside the ritualistic sacrifice of a cow is taking place creating a high intensity atmosphere. The book and the film have a similar moral which is that when left alone with the power to answer to no one, madness with soon develop and eventually corrupt.
After all, horror almost always has someone dying involved, and yet we seek what we fear for the fun of it. For example, despite the vivid descriptions of the murders of the campus women in “Strawberry Spring,” such as “they found part of her in the back seat and part of her in the trunk,” (King, Strawberry Spring 4) we end up craving for more for satisfaction and for a thrill. Moreover, even though “sanity becomes a matter of degree,” (King, “Why We Crave” 2) we can all agree that those of us on the lighter degrees still find amusement in horror. Horror allows our “emotional muscles” to “let loose to scream and roll around in the grass,” (King, “Why We Crave” 2)-- and I think that's a good thing. Otherwise, like the few on the harsher degrees, we would be using our physical muscles to tear each other apart, and that would just ruin the fun for the most of us, wouldn't
...d. In the film, Willard remarks that Kurtz is “clear in the mind but mad in the soul” (Coppola). The statement that Kurtz is a “broken man” is continually reinforced. He was first broken from society and later broken from himself. Eventually, Willard kills Kurtz and Kurtz dies as an honorable soldier. However, this does not occur in the novella in which Kurtz naturally dies from malaria.
When reading each page, a sort of investigation begins in trying to figure out how Kurtz became insane. However, that investigation was not fully closed because in the end no one knew what had happened to him. In a way his character presented the idea that perhaps the darkness, his darkness was his own and was all along in him waiting to come out. Because there were other men living and working in the Congo who had not become insane as he did, such as the Russian trader or the ivory company’s accountant.
To begin with, some people would say they enjoy a horror movie that gets them scared out of their wits. They go see these movies once a month on average, for fun, each time choosing a newer sequel like “Final Destination” or “The evil Dead”. King says “When we pay our four or five bucks and seat ourselves at tenth-row center in a theater showing a horror movie we are daring the nightmare” (405). As a writer of best-sel...
When I was young I would always watch “scary movies” with my sister. For this reason, Every night I would have nightmares after each movie. By all means, I’d end up on the other side of the bed or on the floor. Given that, Stephen King claims his short story “ Why We Crave Horror” is to crave horror by facing our fears and, re-establish our feelings normalcy by getting used to the horror towards something that is called the human condition provided that, he is right about his claims. By all means, His three claims are “To show we can,that we are not afraid, that we can ride this roller coaster”. “ We also go to re-establish our feelings of essential normality”. “ If we share a brotherhood of man, then we also share an insanity of man”.
Stephen King, a very well-known writer and director, has a passionate voice when it comes to anything dealing with horror. In “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” King calls us out for knowing that we love the adrenaline rush and how we are so captivated by horror movies. He explains how we watch horror movies for the level of fun. King proposes that we go to defy ourselves; to see how far it can push us and that is what makes the experience so interesting. We lock our inner psycho from reality and feed it with the demonic, bloody violence found in horror movies. Doing this suggests that horror movies are our fix for our psychotic thoughts. Stephen King’s “Why We Crave Horror Movies” portrays that we are all insane in some weird way through
...e horror!'") and Kurtz's memory for the rest of his life. By turning himself into an enigma, Kurtz has done the ultimate: he has ensured his own immortality.” Kurtz’s status as an enigma serves to propagate an endless number of interpretations. Could his words be a declaration of the horrific dark side of man that lives within us all? Could they be a reaction to his first glimpse of the afterlife? Could they be a regretful look back on a life of sin? Kurtz’s last words leave the reader to draw his or her own conclusions about their meaning. Conrad does not tell us what to think, he makes us think. That is the sign of great art. Those very same words, however, when spoken by Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now, hold far less meaning. The fact that Willard makes the decision to kill Kurtz convinces the audience of Kurtz’s insanity, and his words can be most literally interpreted as a reaction to his own murder. These words, meant to hold the most impact of all dialogue in either work, serve as an accurate metaphor for the works as a whole. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness forces its reader into meaningful introspection, while Apocalypse Now fails to capture the depth of Conrad’s vision.
Kurtz is one of many men sent into the jungle to rape the land and its people of its natural resources. Many men have journeyed into the jungle also refereed as the heart of darkness never to return. Kurtz goes into the jungle and becomes obsessed with the people and the land. Though Kurtz has an obsession with ivory this is not the sole reason for him to overstay his welcome in the jungle.
Kurtz does not have to adapt to his environment, instead the environment adapted onto him, creating an evil and darker twin. He allows his self-serving greed to control him leading him to his dissolution. It is his imperialistic actions that allowed him to fixate over materialistic things. His obsession with wealth and power leads him to destroy the system he was preaching to the natives. His corruption is made evident as he uses the power he gains to create disorder, leading him to the darkness causing his dissolution.
By examining the character of Kurtz, we see that he comes to represent the degenerating institution of colonialism. Jonathan Dollimore remarks that Kurtz “embodies the paradox which degeneration theory tries to explain but only exacerbates, namely that civilization and progress seem to engender their own regression and ruin” (45). We can see this through the fact that Kurtz goes into the Belgian Congo in order to strengthen the European world, yet is ultimately unable to do so as he comes face to face with the realization of what he must do in order to succeed and survive the degeneration of the world he has known. To do this, Kurtz’s monstrosity, or as close as he comes to monstrosity, stems from the fact that the society which he is a part of and represents is dying a slow death. Therefore, his final words of “The horror! The horror!” can be interpr...
A girl runs frantically through the woods trying to escape an axe wielding villain. The defenseless victim suddenly trips and collapses to the ground. The villain laughs wickedly as he lifts the axe above his head. The girl releases a final scream as the weapon quickly ends her life, causing the audience to go silent as they watch the villain drag away the lifeless body. Death, blood, guts, suspense, screaming, and terror are all just a few things to expect when watching a modern day horror film. What is horror? Horror can be defined as an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. (Wilson) The description of horror is not very pleasant, but for some reason horror films are extremely popular. Why is this so? People are addicted to the synthetic feeling of being terrified.
Kurtz was a great man who discovered a flaw in himself while working in Africa. He lacked "restraint" to control the emerging dark side which he found within himself. He plumbs the depths of man's dark side -a side which civilization and culture represses - but is swallowed up, by these forces which eventually overcome him in the isolation of darkest Africa. He falls into unspeakable acts and experiences the primitive power and ecstasy and horror of man's uninhibited darkness. Marlow holds back from "the abyss," although he humbly takes no credit for this achievement, ascribing it to grace. Nonetheless, he comes away changed, even enlightened, by this glimpse into the deeper and darker mysteries of life. William Blake (and Sartre) suggests that the road to heaven leads through hell. Blake also saw the pursuit of truth and self awareness as an effort to combine the Innocence of the Lamb with the darker Passion of the Tyger, the two poles of man's and life's existence. Wisdom and enlightenment come to the one who effectively understands and harmonizes both sides of this human nature.