blog #5 civil savagery

Heart of Darkness creates the idea of the savagery and "horror" of human nature and the inevitability of this savagery, even with the most "civilized" people. While the comparison is made between the people of the Congo river in Africa and the Thames in Europe in the novel and the Vietnamese and the American's during the Vietnam war, the ideas are almost the same. In the film, Americans are supposed to be the civilized ones while the Vietnamese are the savages, but by the end one can see the true savagery of the American soldiers. Heart of Darkness displays the darkness throughout the novel in both nations in order to show that even though one is thought to be bright and civilized compared to the other, they are both dark in their own ways. Constant dark and gloomy/disturbing images in Apocalypse Now give the same effect of the darkness that inevitably swallows humanity.

The darkness also represents the overall blindness humanity has to their inate savagery. The paradox of war displayed in the film is created with the idea that the Americans are supposed to be fighting for good and honor and to uphold the strong morals of America, but they're doing the opposite. The photographer and his staged pictures are used to show the pretty cover that civilized nations try to put over war to the people back home. The ignorance the Americans had back home of the gruesome and horrific war in Vietnam is similar to the European's ignorance to the craziness going on on the Congo. I was able to make the connection that all people have on the ignorance to the savage nature within all of us, and the attempts that are made to cover it up. Whether it be through imperialism or taking false pictures of something like war, the savagery is often attempted to be covered.