nd Kurtz. This brings us to the actual character ofKurtz, a man with a reputation for being powerful and mysterious in both novel andmovie. Racism is clearly portrayed throughout the novel and movie in several differentways. Marlow shows a bit of his own racism when he says, "It was Unearthly, and themen were--- No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it---thissuspicion of their not being inhuman." (p. 59) This quote indicates exactly what Marlow'sfirst thought was upon seeing the lifestyle of the natives. Moreover, the influential white males are far from color blind in that randomshooting takes place in both the book and the movie merely for the sake of killing thenatives of each country respectively. The native's lifestyles are dramatically changedwhen their land is dominated by the powerful white men. The whites expected thenatives to follow and agree with their demands once the natives homelands wereattacked, because the whites considered themselves civilized and thought of the nativesas being wild. Color of skin is used by the whites to rationalize their actions towards thenatives. The plot in the movie has been changed slightly in order to agree with the times,but deep in the heart of it its the same. Kurtz in both cases is the heart of the evil, in thenovel he spreads his evil in the ways he runs the ivory trade and enslaves the natives. Inthe movies Kurtz shows his evil in the way he begins his own colony and becomes a devilgod, using human examples of death to govern his "tribe". Another similarity is the wayCoppola has pictured military machinery that has been broken down. This is a way ofsymbolizing the breakdown of the white man. The American strength is in it's machineryaccording to the movie, and the book uses a civilized way of life as the strength of thewhite man, in both cases they were conquered. Both the novel and the movie ApocalypseNow show clearly that evil does not control, and cruelty...
