Civilized Methods Of The British Empire example essay topic

When Joseph Conrad sat down to write Heart of Darkness over a century ago he decided to set his tale amidst his own country's involvement in the African Congo. Deep in the African jungle his character would make his journey to find the Captain gone astray. Over eighty years later Francis Ford Coppola's Willard would take his journey not in Africa but in the jungles of South Asia. Coppola's Film, Apocalypse Now uses the backdrop of the American Vietnam War yet the similarities between the Conrad's novel and Coppola's film remains constant and plenty. In 1899 when Conrad first published his story in Blackwood's Magazine the British Empire was the dominant global empire. To the common British man or any British man the emblem of savagery was indeed the place they deemed as the 'Dark Continent' of Africa.

The people that lived there had an entirely different style of living that did not involved the 'civilized' methods of the British empire. The natives had not the manners, clothing, nor skin color of Conrad's people. The environment in which they lived of much difference then the British isle. It was hot, humid, dense, exotic filled with dangerous creatures and most of all it was foreign.

When Francis Ford Coppola began work on his film Apocalypse Now the dominant power in the world was no longer the British but the United States of America, the same state that was coming off a bloody war fought in Vietnam. To Coppola's United States Vietnam was barbarity. Soldiers returned with loss of limbs, loss of mind, dead or missing. Stories of rape, pillaging, burning and torture seeped out just on the part of the Vietnamese 'savages' but of the civilized American soldiers, a testament to their envelopment in the Heart of Darkness that is war. Their unravelling of what makes them to be considered civilized and the exotic backdrop is not unlike the British and their exploits in Africa that go along with Conrad's novel. The parallel's between Conrad's and Coppola's chosen settings even go right down into the backbone of the political background.

British and United States policy has been to extend their hand of up righteousness culture onto another. This is done by a brutal conquering and then reformation. In Apocalypse Now the line was used 'Cut " em in half with a machine gun and give'm a band-aid. ' Destroy them and then fix them up or at very least give the appearance of help for world stage. The man known as Marlow is the ever thinking expedition ist in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Captain Benjamin Willard is the rugged soldier that exists as Marlow's likeness in Copolla's film.

There are direct similarities to these two men other then the fact that they are from dominant angelo powers and are directed on a mission to find a man gone missing. Both of these men are insightful and have an eye looking to those around them. Marlow doesn't entirely trust the company he works for the same that can be said about Willard as he does declare their words to be 'Lies all Lies. ' Willard and Marlow are insightful and while there is more evidence in Conrad's work because it is text, the Apocalypse Now is continuously feeding words narrated from the mouth of Willard. By the same notion these two protagonists are skilled story tellers and again there is more evidence of this in Heart of Darkness as uses verb age rather then visuals but it must be considered that Coppola's film is being told by the very character involved: Willard. It is indeed his tale.

The man that is the objective both men seek convient ly carries the same name, Kurtz. Like the two protagonists he is essentially one in the same in both works. Kurtz is the embodiment of a refined man that has succumbed to the nature of savary. In their respective jungles both of these men have befriended the natives and even taken a leadership role to these people yet the people, the jungle has in turn Kurtz into 'darkness.

' Conrad's Kurtz has become what is considered unkempt and wildly. While he has been able to use his relationship with the natives to become extremely successful in the ivory trade he has aggravated his British interests. Coppola's Kurtz has too diverted from what is considered the norm in his society yet through this diversion using the very same methods of the savage native he bypasses the rules of war he is given. In doing so he is able to become successful in what he was assigned to do: kill the enemy.

Like his parallel in Heart of Darkness he brings about the wrath of his nation's interest. From Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now the prim evil nature of humankind is witnessed by means of the characters, societies and environments to the Western world. While a message can be drawn by any reader or scholar of any nation these two works are made for the Western culture they were developed in. There has long since been an exceptionalism that Europe and most recently America has carried throughout the world, at the core Heart of Darkness embodies this carrying it over to it's progeny Apocalypse Now.