The heart of Apocalypse

Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now both depict similar journeys into the jungle which parallels the journeys into each protagonist’s self. Although located in different regions of the world and in different time periods, each character faces numerous events and situations that inevitably changed their perspectives of humanity. Although their destinations are idiosyncratic, they are on the very same journey. In Heart of Darkness, Marlow learns the value of a life and the effects one man can have on another. While in Apocalypse Now, Captain Willard has regressed to a complete disregard for human life and will probably remain in this killer mindset for a long time after the war. The journey of self discovery on the river is what connects these two protagonists.

For both Marlow and Captain Willard the jungle represents the evil that man is capable of. From the river they are looking from the exterior into themselves. The journey they both take upriver is a spiritual journey of their own hearts.

"Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances.” (Heart of Darkness)

While on the river, the protagonists' beliefs and ideas are relentlessly falsified until they believe the exact opposite of what they did in the first place. Marlow confronts the issues of colonization, eventually comprehending that while Europe is imposing their culture on Africa, it is truly Europe which is in need of a social reform. In a similar circumstance, Captain Willard realizes that America intervening in other countries' affairs, which he was so adamantly in favor of, does not make the greatest good.

The deeper they travel up the river, the more they are confronted with fears of failure, insanity, and death. They both have a dangerous fascination with Kurtz. They are what Kurtz had been, and Kurtz is what they could become. The difference between them is while Marlow has an enlightenment of his soul; Captain Willard gets off the boat, like Kurtz did. "Never get out of the boat. Absolutely goddamn right. Unless you were going all the way. Kurtz got off the boat. He split from the whole fucking program.” (Apocalypse Now)