The Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now are basically the same story. The only one difference being their settings. How could such similar events happen under such different circumstances? Well the circumstances are not as dissimilar as they may at first appear. Both are situations in which an individual (Kurtz) is put in an emotionally trying situation. The character named Kurtz from the novel and the character named Kurtz from the movie both react in the same way. In The Heart of Darkness, Kurtz maintains an outpost in the heart of the Congo.
He is introduced to customs and value systems that he had never before encountered. He witnesses sacrifices and cannibalism. These events thoroughly change his mind frame with their profound influence on him. Seeing humans act in this way brought out feelings and desires that he had never before explored. He may or may not have feared these desires at first but he could not deny them regardless. We find out his ideas about these urges at the end of the novel in the famous line “The horror, the horror. Marlow relates his ideas on the topic in the following: I tried to break the spellthat seemed to draw him to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts, by the memory of gratified and monstrous passions. This alone, I was convinced, had driven him out to the edge of the forestthis alone had beguiled his unlawful soul beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations. (pg. 119) Kurtz surrendered his soul completely to the urges and split away from any reality he had previously had.
He could relate to these “savages”. He could relate to their desires, because he began to feel these desires as well. In Apocalypse Now, the character also named Kurtz goes through a drastic change as well. However, his is initiated by witnessing more modern day concerns. He goes to war. He is immediately surrounded by death and dying. The intensity of this all is something very hard to bare. He in fact is not able to bear it. Not only does he become desensitized but he also loses touch with reality.
The meaning of life has become abstract, and death is all that concerns him. Death is all that interests him. He no longer cares for his country because it no longer is his country. This quote best states his newfound outlook: They train young men to drop fire on people but their commanders won’t allow them to write “f***” airplane because it’s obscene. (Apocalypse Now) He realizes their hypocritical ways and in his eyes they are no better than he is. In fact, he feels superior to them morally speaking.
This man Kurtz reacts in the same way to fear in both timeframes. In both instances, a man is confronted with new and horrid occurrences. This man begins to have an urge to act on these feelings. The key that makes this situation different from other plots is that this man acts on these feelings. Both the novel and the movie put a man in a situation where he is able to carry out these urges with no consequence. There is no one around to stop him; all societal bounds have been removed.
