Although eighty years passed between the publication of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and the debut of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now both portray the notion that horror and insanity that can erupt with the clash of dissimilar cultures remains the same. According to University of Alaska Professor Danel Griffin both Conrad and Coppola “managed to create the same themes by tackling the subject matter from completely different angles” (Griffin 2). In support of the “different angles” claim are the main characters of the novel and film.Marlow’s dissimilarity from Willard is as strong as his resemblance. Although both men are in a sense, in “service”, Marlow the sailor and Willard the soldier, their backgrounds are very different. Marlow is an adventurer; as a child he poured over maps, looking for unexplored areas, saying to himself “when I grow up I will go there” (Conrad 51).
His fascination led him to Africa and especially to the Congo River, the major river trade route at the time. As a riverboat pilot he thought to himself “why shouldn’t I try to get charge of one? ” (52) It was the adventure he had long sought.Finding and relieving Kurtz was just part of the adventure. Conversely Willard is a professional soldier. In his first narrative Willard gives a very brief synopsis of his life.
On leave he “said yes to a divorce” and the longer he waits for a mission “Charlie” is in “the bush getting stronger” while he’s getting drunk in a Saigon hotel. We learn from his lunch briefing with the general that he’s Special Forces and likes to work alone. He’s an assassin, and he gets his mission, to “terminate, with extreme prejudice” the renegade Colonel Kurtz.He wasn’t exactly looking for it; in his words “I took the mission—what the hell else was I gonna do? ” Finding and relieving Colonel Kurtz is what leads to Willard’s adventure.
While both men are outsiders to the respective countries, a significant difference is it is Marlow’s first exposure to Africa and the tensions and reality between the colonists and the natives. Willard on the other hand is no stranger to Vietnam or the bizarre events, tensions and reality between the U. S. Military and the Vietnamese.While Marlow doesn’t really have a clue about the reasons to remove Kurtz, Willard’s comment is to the effect that charging Kurtz with murder made as much sense as giving speeding tickets to race car drivers while racing. Both men have a strong sense of purpose and determination despite the obstacles in their path.
Marlow is seemingly capable of preparing and carrying out his mission by himself. On reaching the base settlement he realizes he has no boat. He must wait weeks for the necessary parts and then literally build the boat himself.Once ready his boat reeks of dead meat brought aboard by his native crew and he must tolerate some very intolerable European missionary passengers.
He overcomes, sidesteps, or ignores the obstacle and finally reaches Kurtz’ camp. Willard also has the sense of purpose and determination. However, he must be supported along the way by U. S.
Navy soldiers manning a small “PBR” or “patrol boat, riverine” and then various units of the U. S. Army. Despite a very unwilling Navy boat crew and either strange or non-existence assistance from the Army Willard overcomes the obstacles and eventually, virtually single-handedly reaches Colonel Kurtz’ camp.Marlow and Willard differ in one very significant aspect.
Marlow is struck and offended by the near-death condition of the colonial camp’s native labor force: “While I stood horror-struck, one of these creatures rose to his hands and knees, and went off on all-fours towards the river to drink. He lapped it out of hands…” (64). He is obviously sympathetic to their plight. Willard has no sentimentalities towards the Vietnamese. In a terrifying scene the PBR crew stops to check a sampan, contrary to Willard’s order.
The boat chief, although outranked by Willard, claims he’s in charge and Willard is just along for the ride.The panicky boat crew shoots up the sampan, killing all except a wounded young woman. The crew readies to take her onboard and to a hospital while Willard coldly surveys the carnage and kills the wounded girl. The stunned chief and crew are horrified by Willard’s action, who simply says “I told you not to stop.
Now let’s go. ” A significant difference between Marlow and Willard was access to information, and with it, increasing danger. Marlow had no real idea what he would find, and he gives no impression that he is in danger, the mission could fail, or what finally meeting Kurtz could mean to him.Willard is fed information while coming closer to Kurtz and some is disturbing. He learns another Special Forces officer had the same mission before Willard, and command had reason to believe he was now operating with Kurtz. When arriving at Colonel Kurtz’ camp Willard is face-to-face with his predecessor and it appears to frighten him, as if he is seeing himself.
Upon meeting Kurtz both men have same reaction and virtually the same words. Both are questioned by Kurtz regarding what they think of his methods, and whether his methods are “unsound”.Both reply to the effect that they do not see any method at all. Marlow takes Kurtz onboard alive, and tries to nurse him while he is on his death-bed. Upon his death he is sympathetic and “affirm that Kurtz was a remarkable man” and later mentions nothing of his madness to Kurtz’ kin.
Willard, sent to kill Colonel Kurtz, succeeds in his mission. Both Marlow and Willard had been “to the edge” and both saw how it was their Kurtz could develop into a madman after appearing to the natives as a “god”. Willard, however, may be closer to the edge than Marlow.After killing the Colonel, he walks out onto the temple terrace, with the murder weapon in hand, only to see Kurtz’ “people” drop to the ground in fear and worship of him.
Willard surveys the scene, realizing he could replace Kurtz, and immediately throws down the weapon and retrieves the last remaining boat crewman. Both men have seen for themselves, and heard Kurtz’ words, “the horror”. We are left thinking Marlow will not be making any such trips again in the future. The opposite is probably the case with Willard; he remarked he expected to make Major if he completed the mission.
There is the fundamental difference between Conrad’s protagonist as opposed to Coppola’s version, what film critic A. O. Scott referred to as “the essential dualism of human nature” (Scott 1). Willard was warned, early on, by the general that “there is good and evil in every man” and that everyman has a breaking point. Marlow received no such warning, and had no observer, as did Willard in the “Redux” version as the French widow tells him “’there are two of you’, she says, “one that loves and one that kills. ’” (Scott, 1).
Charlie Marlow was an adventurer who almost had to kill; Captain Willard was a killer who had an incredible adventure.
