Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now: Colonialism's Horror

Introduction: The Horror of Empire

"The horror! The horror!" are the haunting last words spoken by Kurtz in both Joseph Conrad's 1902 novel Heart of Darkness and in Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film Apocalypse Now. Both Kurtzes are portrayed as legendary demi-gods — both to the conquered peoples and to the men around them. Conrad and Coppola present their Kurtzes to symbolize the psychological end-products of colonial or imperial enterprises, including delusional self-aggrandizement. Both Kurtzes are emblems for their respective European societies: men who draw attention to the fact that colonialism is destructive to the psyche of the oppressor as well as that of the oppressed.

The respective heroes of Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now — Marlow and Willard — demonstrate that a spark of humanity can rise from the ashes. Both stories end with "the horror, the horror," but Conrad and Coppola still manage to offer a glimpse of hope, however small. Neither Conrad nor Coppola shrinks from depicting the more visceral destruction wrought by colonization: the blood, gore, and chaos that besiege both sides and that especially devastate the oppressed. On screen, the imagery leaves less to the imagination than Conrad's novel, yet both the film and the book unequivocally make a statement against imperialism and colonization.

Coppola's film was thematically and structurally based on Conrad's earlier novel, but the two stories diverge considerably in terms of setting, plot, and characterization. Conrad exposes the devastation wrought by colonialism and imperialism in central Africa, while Coppola drew heavily upon Conrad in his depiction of the root causes of "the horror, the horror" of the Vietnam War. Despite their obvious differences in form, plot, and structure, both works agree that colonialism and imperialism constitute an enterprise that can destroy the very soul of humanity.

The Jungle as Symbol and Moral Force

Both Coppola and Conrad use nature — notably the jungle — to emphasize the eventual meaninglessness of human activity, to strengthen their portrayals of basic human instincts such as anger and fear, and to draw out the differences between the European colonizers and their victims. Especially in Heart of Darkness, the jungle also serves as a means to explain some of the motives behind colonization: the desire to exploit natural resources and the symbolic desire to tame wild peoples. The Africans have been living in "the heart of darkness" for thousands of years; for the European invaders, the jungle is another enemy — hostile, alien, and threatening. In Part One of Heart of Darkness, Marlow states: "Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him."

In Apocalypse Now, the conflict between man and nature is rendered more visually than verbally. The soldiers feel almost as antagonistic toward their hot, humid, insect-infested environment as they do toward the war and their enemies. Part of their survival depends on their ability to make a kind of peace with the jungle. One of the most affecting attributes of Coppola's film is its depiction of that setting: the oppressive closeness of the jungle and its simultaneous impersonality.

In many ways, both Conrad and Coppola compare the jungle's detached amorality with the figure of Kurtz. At the end of Apocalypse Now, Willard reflects of Kurtz: "Even the jungle wanted him dead, and that's who he really took his orders from anyway." Marlow hints at a similar ambiguity in the European's relationship with the jungle: "He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination — you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate."

Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness send similar messages, presenting colonization as part of the debased human instinct for destruction. Just as the jungle can kill without mercy, so too can a human being. In Apocalypse Now, the jungle is highly symbolic: the Americans are not there primarily to exploit natural resources as the Company was in Heart of Darkness. Nevertheless, both Kurtzes make a kind of peace with the jungle, and it is deeply ironic how each manages to forge his identity in the midst of colonial activity.

Kurtz as the Psychological Product of Colonialism

For Conrad and Coppola, colonialism and imperialism destroy the psyches of both oppressor and oppressed. In Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, the protagonists struggle between their sense of duty, loyalty, and obligation on one hand, and their sense of compassion and sheer disgust on the other. One of the reasons Kurtz is such a legendary figure in both stories is that he attempts to traverse between worlds. Both Kurtzes suffer immensely as a result, and both come across as egomaniacal and completely deluded.

The Kurtzes simultaneously despise the native peoples and love them, but their love is not born of respect. Rather, both Kurtzes perpetuate the colonial mentality by establishing themselves as godlike leaders of their communities and by attempting to forge their own civilizations in the middle of the jungle. This self-deification is the clearest marker of the psychological ruin that colonialism inflicts on the colonizer: stripped of the restraining norms of European society, Kurtz reinvents himself as an absolute sovereign, and the result is madness.

Conclusion: The Legacy of Colonialism

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 peoples 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 addresses in any detail, yet one that their works implicitly indict.

Nevertheless, neither Conrad nor Coppola suggests that any good comes from colonization, even if war does permit individual 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 alike. In this, the two works — separated by more than seventy years and different in virtually every formal respect — speak with one voice.

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."