Pass the Peas Please

“The voice of the surf…was something natural, that had its reason, that had a meaning “Now and then a boat from the shore gave one a momentary contact with reality. It was paddled by black fellows. You could see from afar the whites of their eyeballs glistening. They shouted, sang; their bodies in grotesque masks-these chaps; but they had bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy of movement, that was as natural and true as the surf along their coast. They wanted no excuse for being there. They were a great comfort to look at. For a time I would feel I belonged still to a world of straightforward facts; but the feeling would not last long. Something would turn up to scare it away.”

In most peoples’ minds there is a clear line drawn between the civil and the uncivil. In Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, this line blurs to the point of insignificance. At first, the ivory hunters and soldiers seem civil by trying to suppress the strange and violent natures of the savages. However; once they get into the thick of the wilderness, the distinction between what is civil and what is not, becomes indistinguishable. The true significance of the issue however, lies not in civility itself, but in the distinction between what is real and what is not.

Marlow appreciates the reality of the river, but how can he find that same reality within the uncivilized savages of Africa? He sees the natives and feels comforted, so when he finds Kurtz, who puts this feeling into words, Marlow finally understands that the darkness does not truly lie within the uncivilized. The word civil and all of its connotations don’t matter. Only reality matters. There is no reason to civilization, it is not natural and it is not reality. In so called civilized society, people don’t pick their noses in public or put their elbows on the dinner table, but if left to their own devices, most people would act against these norms of civility, and venture into the realm of reality.

The colonel in Apocalypse Now floats down the same river of reality to find the same truths in Kurtz’s words. The savages he encounters, with all of their grotesquely formed bodies, represent reality. He finds that at the core of every soul there are uncivilized feelings. He sees the uncivilized actions of the soldiers cloaked under the premise of bringing civilization. The soldiers play Wagner as they slaughter the innocent along with the rebels, but the distinction doesn’t matter in the soldier’s minds, because they are all uncivilized.

The uncivilized savages of the jungle represent the reality of human nature, as natural as a river. But once venturing into proper society, the reality of human nature is masked by what is deemed to be civil. When Marlow and the Colonel finally reach Kurtz, they understand this reality. Kurtz has reached this realization long ago, and it has driven him mad. He dies with this knowledge, screaming, “The horror! The horror!”