Heart of Darkness, Hollow Men, and Apocalypse Now Essay

Similarities between Heart of Darkness, Hollow Men, and Apocalypse Now In todays literary world there are many different texts that have interlocking literary meaning through their references to one another and to other works. I am going to compare and draw similarities between T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men, Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness, and Francis Ford Coppolas Apocalypse Now. These three sources have many different references to one another in different ways. In T.S. Eliots The Hollow Men, he begins the poem with the title and underneath the title he uses the famous line Mistah Kurtz- he dead from Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness. This famous line is said by one of the servants about Mr. Kurtz who dies and all†¦show more content†¦In Heart of Darkness Kurtz is this European man who leaves Europe with an empty idealism which collapsed under the force of the savage and barbaric darkness. He visits the Congo and is transformed into this man of the jungle. The character of Kurtz is similar in Apocalypse Now; he is a highly decorated general in the vietnam war and Kurtz goes into the jungle leading him to turn into a man of the jungle. Mr. Kurtz one day loses it and goes crazy. He goes off into the jungles of Vietnam and starts terrorizing villages with his crazy actions and beliefs. In Coppolas Apocalypse Now there is a scene where Mr. Kurtz is reading T.S. Eliots The Hollow Men. Coppola has Kurtzs character read this poem because it is basically saying that his society of the jungle is not turning out the way he wanted it to. Shortly after he reads the poem, Kurtz asks Captain Willard to kill him because of the failure of his society. Kurtz reads the opening stanza of Eliots poem. In this stanza it is talking about the hollow men and how they are stuffed with straw. Coppola uses this significant stanza because KurtzÕs followers are very similar to these hollow men. In the first stanza it says that the hollow men are shape without form, shade without colour, paralysed force, gesture without motion. It is also true with Kurtzs people; they are basically nothing and have no direction. Kurtzs followers are very similar to the hollowShow MoreRelated Discussing Heart Of Darkness, The Hollow Men, and Apocalypse Now1263 Words   |  6 PagesRelationship between Heart Of Darkness, The Hollow Men, and Apocalypse Now      Ã‚   The Hollow Men is a poem by T.S. Eliot who won the Nobel Prize in 1948 for all his great accomplishments. The Hollow Men is about the hollowness that all people have; while Heart of Darkness is a story of the darkness that all people have. The poem written by Eliot was greatly influenced by Conrad and Dante. Some people may even think that WWI also influenced it. It was written after World War I and could be describingRead MoreHuman Nature And The Desire For Superiority1565 Words   |  7 Pagespast. 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