Blog #5: Hypocrisy of civilized men

"It was unearthly, and the men were—No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it—the suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity—like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly."
– Heart of Darkness

Both "Heart of Darkness" and "Apocalypse Now" reinforce the ridiculous hypocrisy involved when the so-called "civilized man" tries to conquer an "uncivilized man." In Africa, England colonized and attempted to subdue and control the "savages." In Vietnam, America tried to change the ways of the communist Viet Congs because we didn't agree with communism. In the two aforementioned works, both the conquering people are painted in a negative light, while the treatment of the uncivilized "savages" evokes pathos from the readers/viewers.

In the movie, we see how the Americans have trivialized the act of killing the Vietnamese. Once again, the army men refer to the Vietnamese as "savages." Flying into the Vietnamese town in the pack of helicopters, the colonel Kilgore plays Wagner because, he says, it gets the men all fired up. The image of the pack of helicopters flying into the Vietnamese town amidst strains of Wagner's epic, heroic-sounding opera was disgustingly stupid. I felt the same way when, standing in the middle of explosions and gunshots, the colonel talks to Lance about the amazing, surfable waves. These actions made the Americans seem almighty and all-powerful, yet at the same time, it made their invincibility somewhat of a joke. While they are supposed to be the powerful ones, they are acting more savage in their treatment of war.

Marlow's journey also illustrates the hypocrisy of the civilized men. At the first stop when he arrived in Africa, Marlow sees a pile of black men who have come into the shade of the palm trees to die. The imagery in this passage evokes incredible emotion and pity for the men; they are so pathetic, so helpless, driven to their painful death by the white men. The black men that are still alive are chained together with iron around their necks, and they are being forced to work for the white men. Even though the English claim they are building a civilization, they are actually acting quite the opposite; they are much more savage than the natives.

Kurtz is a major example of the savagery of the so-called "civilized" man. In the movie, Willard reads about Kurtz's accomplishments – he was at the top of his college class, and he had been revered by army officials at the onset of his military career. In the book, Marlow repeatedly hears of Kurtz's grandness, from the Russian guy, whom Kurtz captivates through his language and ideas, to his fiancee, who refers to Kurtz as gentle and smart. These are, undoubtedly, characterizations of a very civilized man. Quite contrastingly, however, Kurtz is nothing of the sort. Marlow repeatedly refers to Kurtz as "hollow," and we witness Kurtz's utter brutality when we see the heads of slaughtered natives stuck on sticks outside his fortress. Through his quest for ivory/reckless slaughtering, Kurtz, a member of the "civilized" men, becomes more of a savage than the men around him.

The unveiling of the savage within a deemed "civilized" man – such as Kurtz or even Colonel Kilgore – could be because a man understands the hypocrisy of his job. Kurtz, in both cases, becomes a crazy maniac when he recognizes "the horror," which, Marlow says, is a recognition "of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror -- of an intense and hopeless despair." The colonel in the movie probably acts as he does because he has no other way of adequately facing his task of murdering people every day. Throughout both works, Kurtz serves as an example of the utter destruction of war; he recognized the hypocrisy of the conquering people (inculding himself), and he was ultimately destroyed.