trol is enough to strike terror in the heart of anyone.In “Apocalypse Now”, Colonel Kurtz’s village is shown very closely to that of Conrad’s Kurtz. The darkened heads still decorated the fences and the “black hole” still remains open, the signs of the uncivilized culture are everywhere. This type of atmosphere makes it difficult to repress ones animal instincts and remain sane at the same time.Kurtz is made out to be this “universal genius,” but he is really just a hallow man, a false guru only interested in selfish gains. Kurtz’s genius is never shown, the only part of him that stands out is his ability to speak; yet Kurtz only utters a few fleeting words. Words like “The Horror!” and “I want no more than justice.” These are not words of a genius but words of a selfish man, with ideals diluted by power. His horror, this injustice is no more than his lot of ivory being turned over to the trading company, or in the movie Kurtz’s people, his natives, going back to the control of the Vietnamese or even worse the Americans. Kurtz best describes his curiosity and longing to die in the movie. Colonel Kurtz states:“I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That’s my dream. That’s my nightmare. Crawling, swiftly, along the edge of a straight…razor…and surviving.”Kurtz’s worst fear is living, going back to civilization as an uncivilized man. After having his soul cut up by war, just as the snails soft under belly would be cut.Both Marlow and Captain Willard were fully warned and well aware of the evils each would encounter. However he chooses to ignore this aspect in hopes of satisfying his curiosity. His curiosity about the unknown realm drives him to cross the line between civilized human behavior and enters a nightmarish world. In this nightmare world he realizes the horror of human na...
