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Similarities Between Heart Of Darkness And Apocalypse Now

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Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now is a film based on Joseph Conrad’s book, Heart of Darkness. The movie was set in the jungles of Vietnam, instead of Africa like in the book. Just like Conrad’s version, the movie also showed that darkness prevails innately in human hearts. The word “apocalypse” in the title pertains to the doom that the darkness of Vietnam setting brings an apocalypse to the hearts of the soldiers deployed there. Coppola stuck with the basic framework of the novel for his film. The novel follows Marlow's expedition through the various Company stations and eventually was lead to Kurtz. On the other hand, Willard, an Army Captain received orders, gathered his men, and slowly moved along the course of the Nung River until he met a defector soldier, Walter Kurtz. Both the Company in the book and the Army in the film want their man, Kurtz dead, for abominating their strategies and approaches. …show more content…

They are both unsystematic group of insincere men, and their loyalties are questioned by the major characters. The army pretended to be greatly troubled upon knowing that Col. Kurtz has detached from their chain of command, fighting with his own methods. The same hypocrisy was displayed by the Company when they paraded themselves as a humanitarian institution, and light-bearers to Africa. While the Army charged Col. Kurtz with the murder to terminate his command, Willard, figured out that this was just a way out for his superiors. On the other hand, the Company’s Manager fakes deep concern over Kurtz's health in the book. The Army’s General also faked the same level of that Walter Kurtz has reached his breaking

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The person had to deal with death and the reality of war under the worst case scenario. Bob “Rat” Kiley was that soldier and one of the many soldiers that left something in the war. He had lost his friend Curt Lemon and that’s the first sign that the war has been turning to be painful for him. This coping mechanism for the death was to write letters to lemon’s sister and he shot a baby Water Buffalo. This coping mechanism is seen in the chapter “How to tell a true war story”, shows how he has been affected and explained the toll the war had taken on him.

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This event changed Lieutenant Jimmy Cross’s perspective. Another Truth of war is avoiding reality, Catch 22 shows this style none of the characters mention death or ever speak of it. They don’t want to accept the cold reality of war and life.

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Two expeditions traveling up a jungle river at different times (One in the 60’s Vietnam War, and the other during a 40’s botanist adventure), both on different continents (Southeast Asia and South America) and with polarized objectives (One to kill, and the other to learn). In the first expedition, the film, Apocalypse Now, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola: Captain Willard, a special forces assassin, is assigned a top secret mission, at the height of the Vietnam War, to travel up the Nung river into a hostile, very unstable Cambodia, on a Navy patrol boat and kill a highly decorated special forces operative Col Kurtz accused of murder by the Army, and now living amongst indigenous tribes in a remote location. The second expedition,

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1091 Words | 5 Pages

I think in this story he shows how war alters the soldier’s perceptions of right and wrong, just like telling a war story you do not know if it is truthful or not. I think a good example of soldiers not knowing what was right and wrong was when Rat Kiley was torturing the water buffalo. The torturing of the water buffalo may feel wrong to the reader, but we do not know if it is truly wrong. This story is hard for me as the reader to believe because at the beginning of nearly every section the author says, “This is true” or “It’s all exactly true” or some other variation to prove the stories truthfulness. If a person is always trying to convince you that is something is true I have a hard time believing it actually is.

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665 Words | 3 Pages

From the first few pages, it reveals that Second Company has made it out of a battle, losing close to half their men. Soon after, we see a detailed description of Kemmerich’s death, a fellow soldier injured and amputated before the beginning of the story. The way his fellow soldiers reacted, not with apathy yet not with unbridled misery, immediately sets the tone for the book. Other scenes throughout the

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454 Words | 2 Pages

A Soldier’s Play written by Charles Fuller is a compelling murder mystery that gives insight into the racism and prejudice experienced by blacks in the military during World War II. This novel centers on the murder of an African American Sergeant in the army, Waters, which is being investigated by an African American military lawyer, Davenport. Fuller does an excellent job of capturing the societal issues faced by African Americans during World War II including systemic racism within the military and the hatred blacks received both outside and inside of the African American community. Initially the play starts with the mysterious shooting of Sergeant Waters but of course the reader is not privy to the knowledge of who the shooter is.

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Soldiers create intimate and valuable relationships. Curt Lemon and Rat form a close relationship and they can trust each other “with [their lives]” (65). Yet, Rat loses Curt because soldiers frequently lose these relationships because of war’s “absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil” (66). Losing one’s best friend is “so incredibly sad and true” (66), but it is an everyday occurrence during war. Concluding the chapter, the narrator determines that war “is never about war”, and is solely about the “love”, “sorrow” (81), and memories shared.

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Soldiers were not viewed as brave men risking their lives, and the war was seen as an unnecessary event. This type of mentality is seen in the novel with the perceptions of the soldiers. The narrator expresses the view of the time period when he states, “They were soldiers’ coats. Billy was the only one who had a coat from a dead civilian” (82). The meaning behind this is very crucial because it establishes a definite division between soldiers and civilians.

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Instead of disguising his service as an action movie, he discusses his battle against the elements, oneself, and politics. Although some specifics have been changed, the do not change the grand scheme of the novel. For example, in the two chapters “The Man I Killed” and “Ambush,” O’Brien admits that he condensed various ambushes into one event. Although the book does not hash out every single detail of O’Brien’s service, O’Brien still writes about the “simplicity of the true,” confronting the reality of every war:

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After the battles, Willard slowly starts to become more and more like the man that he was trying to find and kill(Colonel Kurtz). This foreshadows the aftermath of the soldiers that were in Vietnam War. Soldiers that came back after the war, we terrified of the war and they were different. They had flashback and negative effect on them. The theme of Apocalypse Now spots the effects on the Vietnam War veterans.

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872 Words | 4 Pages

Depictions of the apocalypse are guaranteed to be a hit movie, as the stories force us to become heroic and imagine ourselves in that situation.6 The real-life apocalyptic imagery seen in this film: earthquakes, city in rubble, and intense weather conditions were overwhelming, but films such as this one help us cope with it. The core of the film is inspired from the biblical Book of Revelation, where Jesus Christ foretold signs of the end times. This film shatters the barriers between reality and fiction, when Jay is seen quoting from the Bible, as the group is being convinced it’s Biblical “Judgement Day” and not a “zombie

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606 Words | 3 Pages

Willis and Jerry are initially portrayed as soldiers who are willing to kill each other without hesitation. However, as they spend more time together, they begin to question the war and its motivations. They realize that the war isn't about winning or losing, but about the senseless loss of life. This serves as a reminder that war is not a viable solution to conflicts and that there are more constructive ways to resolve disputes.

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1260 Words | 6 Pages

The book is set during the firebombing of Dresden which is a horrific event that killed up to 25,000 people. Through Billy Pilgrim, the main character in this book, he shows how brutal war is, and how brutal the war camps were when you got captured. Kurt in a way is trying to tell us that there are alot more horrors to war then ups. We need to find the importance of peace, the importance of just putting down the gun and talking it out. “ and even if the wars didn’t keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death”.

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547 Words | 3 Pages

Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979)—starring Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen–is an award-winning Vietnam War film that follows Captain Willard’s expedition along the Nung River to reach Colonel Kurtz, whom Captain Willard has been ordered to kill. The majority of the film focuses on the upstream journey, which represents the soldiers’ departure from civilization and descent into madness. Most of the movie was filmed in the Philippines, although some footage was shot in the Dominican Republic and the United States (“Apocalypse Now (1979)”). Apocalypse Now was largely inspired by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which explores the scope of man’s evil through the portrayal of Belgian imperialism in the Congo

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In my readings of Catch 22, I found some interesting themes that caught my attention. These themes makes one think of basic life principles and the irony of war. These themes are intertwined with moral values and beliefs. The characters in this novel portrait several major beliefs about war that soldiers held during war.

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