For Conrad and Coppola, colonialism and imperialism destroys the psyches of both the oppressor and the oppressed. In Heart of Darkness and in Apocalypse Now, the protagonists struggle between their sense of duty, loyalty, and obligation with their sense of compassion and sheer disgust. Marlow and Willard both signify the probable state of mind of many American soldiers during the war in Vietnam, and of many European traders during the colonial era. Their illusions shattered by what they encounter in the jungle, Marlow and Willard can nevertheless not completely wrest themselves from their origin and cultural identity. One of the reasons Kurtz is such a legendary figure in both stories is that the man attempted to traverse the worlds. Both Kurtzes suffer immensely as a result, and both come across as being egomaniacal and completely deluded. The Kurtzes simultaneously despise the native peoples and love them, but their love is not borne of respect. Rather, the Kurtzes perpetuate the colonial mentality by establishing themselves as godlike leaders of their communities and by trying to actually forge their own civilizations in the middle of the jungle. Marlow and Willard retain their admiration for their respective Kurtzes out of the knowledge that the men were merely products of their time.
Coppola named his film Apocalypse Now to suggest that the American involvement in Vietnam signified the end of the world. In Part One of Heart of Darkness, Marlow imagines what the Romans must have thought of Britain when they first conquered it: "Imagine him here -- the very end of the world, a sea the color of lead, a sky the color of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina." The "end of the world" is thus a double-entendre. In Conrad's passage, the "end of the world" implies that which was heretofore unknown. The "end of the world" is only a beginning of a new one. In Heart of Darkness, the end of the European world is the beginning of the African one, signified by the mouth of the Congo River. However, through his novel, Conrad shows that indeed the "end of the world" does arrive...
The phrase "the end of the world" can signify, as it does for Coppola, an absolute apocalypse and the destruction of humanity. For Coppola, the Vietnam War indeed mimicked the apocalypse. Coppola's magnificent use of music in the score of Apocalypse Now culminates in his highly appropriate placement of the Doors' "The End." From the napalm blazes to the endless array of machine gun fire, to the smells of burning and dead bodies, the sights, sounds, and smells of war constitute nothing less than the end of the world. Conrad is less explicit in his view of the colonial enterprises in Africa in the late nineteenth century. Although Conrad depicts the destruction of the native cultures and its people, he does not imply that colonialism necessarily brings about apocalyptic visions. Both novel and film also show the perpetuation of Western European cultures and their paradoxical and ill-gotten triumphs.
Both Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now depict the inherent cruelty and devastation of colonialism and imperialism: "the horror, the horror" of hostility, violence, murder, rape, and destruction. Robbing whole cultures and individual people of their livelihoods and denying them the right to exist, the world's bullies have transformed so much of the earth into wastelands. Colonialism created third worlds, a consequence that neither Conrad nor Coppola address in any detail. Nevertheless, neither Conrad nor Coppola suggests that any good comes from colonization even if war does permit heroes to emerge. In addition to the macrocosmic consequences of colonization, both Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now show how imperialistic practices wreak havoc on the individual and collective psyches of the oppressor and the oppressed.
Works Cited
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness.
Coppola, Francis Ford. Apocalypse Now Redux. 1979 feature film.
Class notes and lectures: "Introduction to Heart of Darkness," and "European Imperialism in Africa."
