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Heart of Darkness vs. Apocalypse Now Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now Joseph Conrad once wrote, “the individual consciousness was destined to be in total contradiction to its physical and moral environment” (Conrad-1897); the validity of his statement is reflected in the physiological and psychological changes that the characters in both his Heart of Darkness and Coppola’s Apocalypse Now undergo as they travel up their respective rivers, the Congo and the Nung. Each journey up the tropical river is symbolic of a voyage of discovery into the dark heart of man, and an encounter with his capacity for evil. In such a voyage the characters regress to their basic instincts as they assimilate themselves into an alien world with its primeval dangers. When the characters are unable to withstand the various temptations along this passage, they helplessly sell their souls to corruption. In both the book and the movie, the various events along each individual journey help illustrate not only the physical deterioration of the environment and the characters’ health but also the psychological degrada