My Thoughts on: The Heart of Darkness

Hello Lovlies, 

Below is my thoughts on The heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad as well as a book to movie comparison. Enjoy!

Forever, 

Sarah

The heart of darkness resides is us all, it is the manifestation of human greed, and the need for civil advancement. We see this in several places in both Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and its movie counterpart, Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. In both the film and the movie the jungle plays an important role in getting this point across, along with character portrayals, and the voice of Kurtz.

                The jungle in both the movie and the book play in important role. The jungle is always there, always watching you, and exemplifies the wild, uncivilized Earth, and the people inhabiting it. For both Willard, our army captain of Apocalypse Now,  and Marlow, the storyteller of Heart Of Darkness the jungle brings a whole new meaning to “big brother is watching you” in the form of Kurtz’s followers, tigers, and “taking on [Kurtz] a terrible vengeance for a fantastic invasion “ (heart of darkness, page 138). In the movie, Willard describes this place as “the worst place in the world, going down a river that leads him straight to Kurtz”.  The jungle, in both the movie and the book is really a main role, always being personified, and Kurtz finds out the hard way that the jungle doesn’t like to be messed with, even for precious ivory.

                Character portrayals are a key part in both the book and movie. In Apocalypse Now, Willard will do anything for the mission, because that is what he came to do, he was given a job, and so he will do it. In the very start of the movie he is begging for a mission to the point of insanity, he needs this, more than anything, going stir crazy on base without one. As he narrative says “when I was here, I wanted to be there; when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle. I’m here a week now… waiting for a mission… getting softer.  Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger, each time I look around the walls moved in a little tighter”.   On the other hand, Marlow was sent by a Belgian company to take over Kurtz’ job, and send him back to civilization. The company was collecting ivory to make a profit, and Kurtz was running the Inner Station very well, but had gone incommunicado with his employers becoming very greedy and keeping the ivory for himself, and thus getting very sick.

                Through the course of the book the voice of Kurtz is there, however, Kurtz himself is a shadow. One could say he is the shadow of civilization falling over the jungle, making men into the “hollow men” wherever he goes. For example the “improved specimen” who could fire the boiler on page 109. The man, in a European view now had purpose. Kurtz and his degenerate self find the civilization mundane and thus goes on his own. It is for this same reason that Kurtz in the movie embraces the horror and the evil manifestation of greed in imperialism. Kurtz’s fall from grace, so to speak, is Conrad’s way of showing the people that this is what happens when one embraces greed, the horror. The change in Kurtz could be called the personification of that malicious greed of human advancement. One loses who they are, becoming a hollow shell of a man, never finding true happiness, becoming, as described in the book, the shadowy figure dancing in the fire.

                In conclusion, the heart of darkness is not an actual tangible thing, but an expression used to describe what is happening politically, and in civil advancement, the greed that is in human nature. Both Conrad and Coppola demonstrate this through use of the jungle, the different character portrayals of Willard, Marlow, and Kurtz, and last, but very significantly the voice of Kurtz. Using all three of these things we get two very political pieces that really make one think of the kind of world they live in, and one’s own involvement in the heart of darkness.