Heart of Darkness Apocalypse Now,

Heart of Darkness

Apocalypse Now, Heart of Darkness, and Things Fall Apart share common themes, symbols, and motifs. Among the most salient of those motifs is the journey; the journey into the heart of the darkness that lies at the center of the human experience. Each of these stories conveys the central themes in different ways. The earliest of these three tales is Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Conrad's Heart of Darkness was published in 1903. The book is a novella that tells the story of a British man hired by a Belgian multinational conglomerate doing business in ivory trading in the center of Africa: what is now the Congo. His journey into the heart of the dark continent allows Conrad to explore issues related to race, class, social power, and especially the degradation of human consciousness. With his 1979 film Heart of Darkness, Francis Ford Coppola builds on the firm foundation that Joseph Conrad already established with the Heart of Darkness. Using the Vietnam War as an overriding narrative, Coppola still flushes out the same themes related to a journey into the heart of darkness. That darkness remains a symbol for the evil that is the human soul. After all, the famous last lines "The horror, the horror!" encapsulate the heart of darkness. Nigerian author Chinua Achebe in 1958 wrote one of the most impactful novels ever to come out of Africa. Things Fall Apart is not like Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now in that it is unrelated to the other two stories and is told from the perspective of African, rather than European society. However, Things Fall Apart is also about a journey into the heart of the darkness of the human soul. Each of these three marvelous works: Apocalypse Now, Heart of Darkness, and Things Fall Apart use the journey as a motif to symbolize the evil at the heart of the human experience.

Apocalypse Now is already symbolic, because it builds upon Conrad's story about colonialism in Africa and takes the journey into the heart of darkness into Southeast Asia. Coppola uses Conrad's novella to convey similar themes about colonialism and exploitation to discuss matters more related to the Vietnam War. Yet Coppola makes an important stance in choosing to use the same name Kurtz. Doing so not only anchors the viewer into more recent current events but also shows how history is cyclical and makes commentary about the enduring reality of war, conflict, and exploitation. In this sense, Chinua Achebe is different from the other two stories in that it does not share a common character.

Okonkwo, the protagonist in Achebe's Things Fall Apart, is like both the Kurtz in Heart of Darkness and the Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. The main characters in all three stories share symbolic and literal functions. Unlike Things Fall Apart, both Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now have protagonists who are actually not the most pivotal characters in the book. The reader of Heart of Darkness, and the viewer of Apocalypse Now is supposed to relate most to the protagonist, who is Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen) in Apocalypse Now and Charlie Marlow in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. These protagonists, Marlow and Willard, do not appreciably change throughout the course of their respective narratives. They tell their stories in ways that allow the viewer or the reader to project fully into the story. On the other hand, Okonkwo is a strong character who the reader gets to know but does not project onto. This literary technique differentiates the three stories from one another and facilitates the function of the journey symbol. After all, when the reader encounters Okonkwo, the protagonist's journey is but a story. When the reader encounters Marlow in Heart of Darkness and the viewer meets Martin Sheen as Benjamin Willard in Apocalypse Now, there is a sense that we are being taken on our own journey.

Okonkwo's journey is one of self-imposed exile. So, too, is the journey of the Kurtz character in Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Thus, Kurtz takes the place of the protagonist as being the symbolic character catalyst in Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart. The Kurtz character is more similar to the Okonkwo character than either Marlow or Willard. For this reason, Kurtz can be considered a default protagonist. The journey that Kurtz took has already happened, though. The reader of Heart of Darkness and the viewer of Apocalypse Now does not know how Kurtz got to that point. All we know is that Kurtz lost his mind, went insane, and is now a freak example of the heart of darkness of the human soul.

Even if their exile is self-imposed, Okonkwo and Kurtz remain a world apart from the rest of society. Psychologically and spiritually, Okonkwo and Kurtz are exiled. Their journeys are tragic in the sense that they are no longer in control of their bodies, minds, and souls. Regardless of how the Kurtz characters got to the center of the jungle and lost their minds, they are certainly portrayed as being insane. The journey is one that took them to a point at which no human being can return. They have seen the heart of darkness. Okonkwo is the same. He has not only seen but, like Kurtz, acted out the heart of darkness. The Kurtzes and Okonkwo have killed. They know what it is like to be insane and to be disconnected from the rest of humanity. Their journeys are not journeys to enlightenment but to hell.

Achebe actually portrays Okonkwo's exile as also being at least in part self-imposed, even though he was technically banished from the community. After all, Okonkwo must take responsibility for the beating of his wife and the death of Ikemefuna. His willful, selfish actions resulted in exile. The boy's death directly predicated Okonkwo's carelessness at the funeral. For Kurtz in both Heart of Darkness and in Apocalypse Now, exile is also self-imposed. The Kurtz characters became intimately familiar with the colonial enterprise of exploitation. Achebe explores the theme of colonialism too, and shows how colonialism is part of the heart of darkness. Colonialism is a theme shared in common with all three of these stories but is rendered in different ways.