Heart of Darkness

what similarities of theme do heart of darkness and apocalypse now share? what can we understand about human nature by examining the themes of both texts?

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yea but I don't understand it

can u please help with one

Coppola actually based his film on Conrad's Heart of Darkness. While Conrad focuses on British imperialism in Africa, Coppola films American involvement in Vietnam. Like the Europeans in Conrad's book, many of the American soldiers find themselves lulled into their own Heart of Darkness in the jungles of Vietnam. The jungles represent a heat oppressed alien-like world where Western logic doesn't operate. Some soldiers,like Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, descend into their own madness. As well, Coppola shows the cruelty that grips these soldiers, a cruelty similar to the Europeans in Conrad's book. From both works, we wonder if it is human nature, or perhaps white colonial nature, that pushes the worst in the "invaders". Conrad and Coppola both question if the "invaders" are inherently evil or is it the darkness of the otherness which they can't comprehend that envelopes them.