Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, and Apocalypse Now, a movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola can be compared and contrasted in many ways. The change in the setting of the film and the novel is an excellent example of how the film and novel differ, yet still convey a powerful meaning. In the novel the setting is the African jungle along the Congo River during the height of the ivory trade, whereas in the film the setting is the war torn Vietnam jungle down the Nung River, while ruthless and barbaric fighting is going on there.
In Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Marlow, the narrator journeys up the Congo River into the heart of the African jungle, to his ultimate destination of visiting Kurtz, who has gone insane from his experiences in the jungle. Africa in the late 1890's was a place of immense darkness and mystery. Marlow is commissioned as a captain of a steamboat to transport ivory on the Congo River and is eventually ordered to find and bring back Kurtz. For Marlow the African jungle is a new experience for him. "wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet" (Conrad 62). He starts to see how prolonged exposure to the jungle can change people. It was very common for people who went to the Congo to never return. If they did finally return, they would not be the same mentally as they were previous to going to the Congo. The jungle in Heart of Darkness is filled with mystery, darkness, and death: .
The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was very quiet there. At night sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high over our heads, till the first break of day. Whether it meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell.