reading reflection

Spiegelman and O’brien seem very different. It’s hard to explain but reading O’brien feels slower, more intentional and with Spiegalman things seems more lively. This probably has to do with the fact that this is a graphic novel. It seems both O’brien and Spiegelman struggled with the idea of war and the draft. O’brien’s relationship with the war seems deeper. At least at this point. The way Spiegelman writes as if english were the second language hugely impacts the way the story reads and feels and gives it a way more complex dimension. Although O’brien is clearly incredibly smart and an amazing writer, I prefer Spiegelmen’s work. That might be perhaps because I am a designer so I am sucked in by the genius concepts behind the graphics which take the story to a whole new level for me.

The Lavishments of Light Looking

Well

.. It’s no question that Maus and The Things They Carried share very similar methods of story telling. The first thing to note would be how both authors are actually main characters within the works. They both are considered semi-autobiographical and toy with meta-fiction. In The Things They Carried Tim O’ Brien portrays himself as a forty year old writer and vet with only minor differences between the narrator and author. Art Spiegelman plays himself as a young man telling the story of his fathers past.

I really enjoyed the part in Maus when Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, interrupted his storytelling and screamed at Spiegelman not to put the part about Lucia in his story. It reminded me of when Norman Bowker asked Tim O’ Brien not to use his real name when writing “Speaking of Courage” or when Jimmy Cross asked O’Brien not mention anything about Martha in his story. Both works let their characters do half the narrating and it’s a very interesting, and sometimes blurry way to read a book. Maus is biographical when Vladek tells his experiences throughout the holocaust, but flips to autobiography in the moments when Art Spiegelman details his relationship with his father. I would say Tim O’Brien toys with the whole meta-fiction theme a lot more in The Things They Carried to keep toying with the reader’s perception. I always felt the need to remind myself who’s actually telling the story, Tim O’Brien or Tim O’Brien?

Ok I definitely got a little sidetracked here with the whole meta-fiction theme but hey this coffee tastes amazing. Both works can be considered fiction, non-fiction, autobiographies, or memoirs and that’s super cool.

Speigelman's Storytelling Method

Speigelman's way of story telling differs in multiple ways compared to O'Brien's in The Things They Carried.  Often I had trouble following O'Briens style of writing, and I didn't care for all the individual stories within one big story.  Speigelman style is the use of a comic book which is one a lot more entertaining, and also much easier to follow than O'Brien's work.  Spiegelman's work doesn't make you question reality unlike O'Brien does many times.  O'Brien almost seemed like he had the intention of confusing the reader at times, or make them question if an event actually occurred or not.  Spiegalman's "Maus" is graphic, and also flows much better than The Things They Carried.
       Some of the similarities within both works is that they both occur during a time of war where difficulties are very apparent for the characters.  Both Tim O'Brien and Spiegelman show a constant struggle also throughout their works.  I definitely prefer Spiegelman's way of storytelling because it is much easier for me to stay aware of what is going on.  Often in Tim O'Briens writing process I became lost and often times misinterpreted scenes or individual accounts he worked to show.

The Big Picture

In terms of story telling, I prefer Speigelman's method rather than O'Brien's method. For one, I am much more inclined to read a story if it is in comic book format (just a personal preference), but also because Speigelman's story is straight forward. Instead of having a collection of a bunch of different stories such as with O'Brien, Speigelman has only one. He is successfully able to exemplify a bigger picture through his story as well, where as with O'Brien, The Things They Carried, one has to go into much deeper detail to understand what is going on. It comes down to what type of reader is reading these stories. For example, I am able to grasp the meaning of a story if that story is described clearly and in a straight-through motion (the comic book style helps as well). One could argue that the way in which O'Brien writes is clear and concise. I disagree, but opinion is opinion.

All in all I side with Spiegelman's writing style. It brings into focus the bigger picture in a more concise way than O'Brien's way of writing.

Blog 6

Maus is the Pulitzer Prize winning story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe. Dan, his son a cartoonist, tries to come to terms with his father and his experiences through the Holocaust. Speigelman's fathers' account of how he and his wife survived Hilter's Europe if filled with harrowing stories of near death experiences, improbable escapes, and the terror of confinement and betrayal. The harrowing stories given by Spiegelman are given in the perspective where characters are represented by animals; Jews as mice, Nazi's as cats and Germans as pigs. These animal characters have underlining messages as to the morality of the characters and their relationship with one another; consequently Jews are being hunted by Nazi cats surrounded by indifferent German pigs. The use of cartoon characters, such as animals, to represent characters is a theme not represented in a Tim Obrien's a Things They Carried.  However Tim Obrien's The Things They Carried does mirror Spiegelman’s use of metaphors within Maus, these metaphors are often subtle commentary’s on the effects of war. One of the earliest uses of metaphors by Spiegelman is when he states "I must be seeing things. how can a tree run? .... But I kept shooting and shooting. Until finally the tree stopped moving."  in The Sheik (48 Speigelman). This quote best exemplifies how Speigelman uses metaphors within his stories to make subtle commentary about war and its participants. Obrien's use of metaphors is utilized throughout The Things They Carried to draw the distinction between death and war. When reading Maus I discovered that Spiegelman's use of narration and descriptive story telling abilities grasp my attention consistently. Maus is about WW II and the holocaust, both of which I have a high amount of intrigue, which is why I find the story to be comparably more interesting than The Things They Carried.

Anthropomorphism

I easily prefer the work of Spiegelman to O’Brien. Not just because the sheer amount of painstaking preparation, editing, and redrawing in comics is a more significant undertaking than writing of fiction, but also because Spiegelman’s story does not pretend to be Fiction. The most significantly irritating aspect of The Things They Carried in comparison is that it features a Tim O’Brien character, but we can never be sure of how closely that character intersects with reality itself. Spiegelman presents this as an account of what he what told. Whether or not it’s true has no bearing on the story because the author depicts it as diligently as possible.

Maus’ one comparable conceit is that all the characters are animals, but it doesn’t make the reader question the validity of the story. Instead, it operates on the storytelling conventions we associate with anthropomorphic creatures. It works on a symbolic level. The symbolism makes the story easily digestible and provides an easier way by simultaneous information can be communicated.

O’Brien, on the other hand, tries to resist any attempt at symbolism or the fantastic. This is another reason The Things They Carried completely and utterly doesn’t work for me. O’Brien’s only advantage over Spiegelman is that the story he’s telling is from the first-person perspective.

A first person author and narrator is completely and utterly responsible for what their tale achieves—and how it affects the audience. This means that they either have a responsibility to tell the entire truth or as much as they possibly can. Spiegelman tells the story as best he can—mostly because—it’s his Father’s story. O’Brien tries to tell his story and also to pretend like it isn’t his. The latter is a source of annoyance.

The other thing of which makes Maus a significantly more interesting story to read is that it feels more relevant somehow. The thesis of O’Brien’s story seems to be attempting to resist any and all attempts at creating a narrative. This is, of course, something that can be accomplished, but I question an author’s desire to. While O’Brien does achieve this, narrative is the only framing device by which a story can become accessible. O’Brien wants to resist any attempt to impose morals on his story. It’s admirable, but fruitless, because it’s going to happen anyway.  In fact, for the most part, I like O’Brien’s stories. I like what they are about. I don’t like what they are in practice. By this, I mean that they fall completely short of any expectations they set up in the beginning.

Story Telling

           A huge difference in writing between Speigelman's and O'Brien's writing I noticed was the way their stories are told.  O'Brien uses writing techniques such as repetition and contradiction in order to display a common theme or get a point across to the reader.  Speigelman's writing is fluid and moves in a progressive manner, like a typical story.  Speigleman also is not inserting personal opinion into his story, because it is not his story, it's his fathers.  I think he does this because he wants his story to be as close to what actually happened as it could be; unlike O'Brien who cares more about what is being portrayed in his stories rather than its validity.  I like Speigelman's writing style more, even though I am not the biggest fan of the comic book format.  His story is more based on following an order of events that happened, its more of a narrative than O'Brien's stories.
    A similarity I did notice between the two writing styles was the author's ability to make you feel like you are in the story, or stories.  O'Brien's descriptive writing had me feel like I was walking down the same path of heavy jungle when Lemon took a wrong step and ended up in a tree.  As well as Speigelman's writing, and comics, that made me feel like a fly on the wall following his father through his story.

Mice verse Men

     The main difference between Speigelman's writing and O'Brien's writing is the tone, I think. Speigelman seems to mask grimness, and terror, and fear. He does it intentionally though. All of those emotions sort of creeps up on you. Maus seems like one long jest almost. For instance the joke Speigelman makes about how the mouse's father helps him escape war. Escaping war was a very necessary, and important thing to do. No one wants to go to Siberia for 25 years, but he makes light of it. O'Brien's version of escaping the war is on the rainy river. It's basically a dramatic saga packed into a short story. While, Speigelman jokes about the father mouse could only get three hours of sleep. His father lamenting, but in a funny way. This sense of humor is again repeated in the next scene as well when his father goes into war. His father talks about how the tree seemed to be moving, and he wonders if trees could run. Finally, his father guns down the wounded warrior and says in a flabbergasted tone "I kept shooting and shooting until the tree stopped moving. Who knows; otherwise he could have shot me!" This is a totally real and serious concern. Is my life worth another's? Should I gun down a wounded man? O'Brien's way of writing about death is much more sinister. He projects all of his character's worries about war onto the Vietnamese man he shoots. He goes, on and on about what kind of person the man was. He literally, 100% percent does not know anything about what the man was like. If that isn't a difference in writing styles, I don't know what is.

Speigelman VS O´Brien

Speigelman´s graphic novel "Maus" is different from O´Brien´s "The Things They Carried" in many ways. Maus is a graphic novel, it is a biography as well as an autobiography, and if follows one main story in chronological progress, with the exception of the scenes where the author visits his father to continue the story; also, the story takes place in the times of Nazi Germany. In the other hand, The Things They Carried is a collection of short stories without images to represent the setting, except for those described in detail for readers to imagine; it is considered to be a work of fiction since most of the events in the stories are not confirmed to be accurate, and since it is a collection of short stories, it has no chronology so one story may have very little, or nothing, to do with the other, and they are all based on the Vietnam War.

However, they are similar in a few things; they are both based on real life experiences, their setting is placed in times of war, and even though the characters are experiencing a very different struggle, they face a struggle nonetheless, and we come to learn how they dealt with it in both stories.

Thus far, I prefer Tim O´Brien, mainly because his descriptions are very detailed and sentimental, and he is great at making sure that we sympathize with the characters´ struggles, even if it takes being repetitive to accomplish it, which he does very well by making it look as part of the mental struggle dealing with a traumatic event. I believe O´Brien just has an edge over Speigelman with that gift to show off intensity in his writing.

Conrad, Lovecraft, and Achebe

Some may be tempted to give Joseph Conrad (and other authors) a kind of benefit of the doubt. That is, to read Heart of Darkness, preferring not to think on Chinua Achebe’s essay “An Image of Africa.” “Surely,” we say, “taking into consideration that he is a canonized author, it couldn’t have been his intention to create the narrative Achebe accuses him of,” or on the other hand, and finding no fault with the author: “Conrad was clearly a genius,” another will say, convinced that in Heart of Darkness, Conrad is, in fact, objectively providing a commentary on the actions of white Europeans in Africa:

“Why, it’s obvious that interpreting the setting in such a superficial way was Conrad’s point entirely!”

It seems highly unlikely that the latter reading was part of the author’s original design. I agree with Achebe, this would perhaps give Conrad too much credit. However, texts survive their author’s and their author’s intentions. We can, in fact, read this into Heart of Darkness, if it is helpful to us.

I can contest nothing about Achebe’s essay. Therefore, I have nothing else to say in this respect. What I would rather explore is how much I’ve noticed how H. P. Lovecraft’s body of work bears a significant resemblance to that of Joseph Conrad’s.

Lovecraft is another such writer fixated on mysteries and what he considers unknowable things. There are numerous stories in which Lovecraft displays his fear of the Other—in the form the Otherworldly Beings. The only setting of which seemingly gave Lovecraft comfort was that of his puritanical home. He often describes, at length, the Euclidian, predictable architecture of Providence, Rhode Island and the pillars of virtue in his community—such as the Masonic Lodge. He contrasts it, with non-Euclidean horrors, obelisks, and “Horror[s] in Clay.”

In his “Call of Cthulhu,” Lovecraft talks of strange, “undecipherable” things, “bacchanals,” and “tom-toms.” These were seemingly as much of a source of anxiety to him, as they were to Conrad. “There are vocal qualities peculiar to men, and vocal qualities peculiar to beasts; and it is terrible to hear the one when the source should yield the other. Animal fury and orgiastic license here whipped themselves to daemoniac heights by howls and squawking ecstacies that tore and reverberated through those nighted woods like pestilential tempests from the gulfs of hell. Now and then the less organized ululation would cease, and from what seemed a well-drilled chorus of hoarse voices would rise in sing-song…”

Similarly, Lovecraftian stories have much in common with Heart of Darkness and the subsequently derived APOCALPYSE NOW (1979). All three of these stories feature characters that fancy themselves skeptics—being therefore initially believable by the audience—they bring with them an air of doubt in regards to all they encounter, until being driven mad after coming into contact with some indescribable force. Doing so leaves them with no choice, but to question the very bedrocks on which their entire belief systems are founded. 

In Lovecraft’s case, the sheer gulf between the point of view character and the Ancient Evil Other is so completely insurmountable—that he can only flee in terror from the source.

Shall we conclude this was Lovecraft’s point entirely? Is he, in fact, describing the anxieties he faced from new (and less legitimate—in his own opinion) peoples immigrating to America—a country to which, he was proud to claim—his ancestors had arrived via the Mayflower? It’s possible we could be reading too much into this. Perhaps he really was just afraid of the horrors he described. The protagonist is, after all, interacting with an entity that is literally from another world.

Regardless, Lovecraft stories function for the reader because there is a perceived idea of the norm and there are boundaries of which the protagonist can (and cannot) cross.

 In the “Cult of Cthulhu,” New Orleans serves the function of Conrad’s Africa:

“In a natural glade of the swamp stood a grassy island of perhaps an acre's extent, clear of trees and tolerably dry. On this now leaped and twisted a more indescribable horde of human abnormality than any but a Sime or an Angarola could paint. Void of clothing, this hybrid spawn were braying, bellowing, and writhing about a monstrous ring-shaped bonfire.”

Lovecraft’s persons involved in praising the god Cthulhu “were seamen, and a sprinkling of negroes and mulattoes, largely West Indians or Brava Portuguese from the Cape Verde Islands, gave a colouring of voodooism to the heterogeneous cult. But before many questions were asked, it became manifest that something far deeper and older than negro fetichism was involved. Degraded and ignorant as they were, the creatures held with surprising consistency to the central idea of their loathsome faith.” Can there be any doubt now of the similarities between Conrad and Lovecraft?

There can be no place further in the US from Lovecraft’s native New England than New Orleans. Lovecraft even refers to the people of New Orleans in terms similar to those of which Conrad uses to refer to the people living along the banks of the Congo. Despite all this, I continue to enjoy the work of Lovecraft to this day. To interpret the text in this way is no different than the subsequent addition of footnotes and annotations. They all serve essentially the same purpose—the addition of a context—a lens of skepticism through which guilty pleasures can be further enlightening and therefore, not guilty.

The enemy's homeland

As much as I hate not providing a significant contribution to a discussion, I'm afraid I'll have to be that guy.  As a man who has never read, nor has never even seen a physical copy of Heart of Darkness, I can not say I know a lot about the book, other than the fact that it follows the pattern of an ancient Greek myth.  Other than that, like I said, I don't know much at all about it other than the quotes that came from "An Image of Africa."  From what I got out of Achebe's writing and from class discussion I can infer that one of the only terms I can define this book as is controversial.  Aside from that, I noticed that Achebe does describe this book along vague, yet similar lines to Apocalypse Now (certainly not on purpose) in two ways that I can recall.  For one (and I'll make this brief to avoid confusion) I notice a slight theme of sexism in what I can view of Heart of Darkness.  And the only way I can really draw similarities is with the scene of the dancers in Vietnam, how they're portrayed as nothing but *ahem* "Sexy meatbags" to the soldiers.  In other words, females do NOT serve a huge purpose in either story, which of course is extremely degrading and unacceptable with modern [proper] standards.  The second and biggest thing I noticed, and I hate to bring it up because it was talked about so frequently in class, is the theme that the backdrop of the story plays a big role in both stories.  In Heart of Darkness we can draw from the fact that the author certainly used the African backdrop as a big role in his story, and for Apocalypse Now we see the Vietnamese being used as a backdrop.  And whilst I can't necessarily describe what exactly I'm talking about through text, the best way I can put it is that the fact that so little attention is being applied to the backdrop of both stories, it not only shows an example of severe disregard for the enemy's homelanders, but it also depicts the fact that the main character is so focused on himself that not much of their attention is even being diverted to the people who;s soil they're living off of.  I know I'm probably not making much sense at this point because it's a little late, but that's what I got out of it.

More than an accessory and an obsession

Achebe's objection to Heart of Darkness was the best assignment piece I have read in what seems like my college experience academically. Every analysis and point made really stood out to me and I found my self praising this man aloud. I have always personally HATED Heart of Darkness and the fact that I was made to read such an "amazing piece of literature" in high school has never settled well with me. I've always found the way that Conrad goes to illustrate the Africans as incompetent animals disgusting and he further goes on to dehumanize the people and culture of Africa. Being a woman of African descent and reading the objections that Achebe makes to Conrad's writing was honestly a sigh of relief. Achebe makes the connection that though Conrad is a brilliant writer when he first describes the scene of the Congo River and the "black frenzy" being incomprehensible, the relevant point is made that Conrad is making all the effort in the world to NOT understand the Africans and their culture. Rather Conrad writes on preconceived notions and his own personal disdain. The African people are simply a back drop in his exploration and exploitation of Africa. This parallels to Apocalypse Now because the same can be said of the American soldiers that basically have no regard for Vietnam, the People of Vietnam, and the culture. Many people forget that we fought along side many Vietnam soldiers and the Vietcong were the enemies. So when war becomes a "game" of who can kill how many Vietnamese, the humanity of a person is overlooked and overshadowed by a number. Why? Because these people seen as "natives" "uncivilized" "savages" the same thing is being applied to the Vietnamese people as was and still is applied to African or Black people today.

The Heart Of Darkness !

Achebe has a few issues with Heart of Darkness. The distillation of his argument comes down to the fact that the author does not see the people as people nor the land as a real land. Essentially the author of heart of darkness uses the people of the Congo as the purple velvet on a play set. He uses them to paint over. He uses them as a setting, not a people. I think Achebe's argument makes a lot of sense. No one would want their nation or their people referred to as a backdrop. I often feel that indigenous cultures are portrayed as a backdrop. One group here in the united states that is often seen as backdrop are the Native Americans. Similarly to African indigenous people, Native Americans in North America are a very diverse group of people with different customs, languages, and cultures depending on region and are not simply backdrop. It makes sense then, how Coppola is doing the same thing to the Vietnamese and Cambodian people since Apocalypse Now is based off of Heart of Darkness. While it makes sense that the comparison is there, one might hope that Coppola had made a movie where the indigenous people were not the purple velvet backdrop in a play.
     Another aspect of Heart of Darkness that Achebe has issue with is the portrayal of going down the river as being journeying into the other world. It's almost like he's making the soldiers Alice and the river the rabbit hole which they are falling into. However, the problem with the story is that the Congo is not the rabbit hole, and the soldiers are not Alice. I think that this is playing on the Overall, the moral of Achebe's argument is that one should portray people as people not an abstract, mystical landscape.

ACHEBE Heart of Darkness

Achebe's main objection is that it was written by a white male who was out of touch with the African culture.  Achebe objects the Heart of Darkness due to the language and portrayal of the Africans. Ethnocentricity is also a huge part of society and always has been which is an issue.  The Heart of Darkness describes the Africans as if they are a different species.  It's really about the dehumanization as Africans overall.  This relates to Apocolypse Now because the soldiers are also dehumanized in a way.  They are thrown into this environment where they are basically taught to act like savages or animals because that is what makes them "the best soldier".  For example the soldiers described the Vietnamese as a backwards and primitive group of people.  For example when the Vietnamese are half naked on canoes they are seen as animals because their culture wasn't understood.
-cole p

Dehumanization

This quote I would say best sums up Achebe's objection.

"The point of my observations should be quite clear by now, namely in criticisms of his work is due to the fact that white racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinking that its manifestations go com-that Conrad was a bloody racist" (8-9).

Not being very specific when I state this, but Achebe objects highly against Conrad! In terms of Heart of Darkness, Achebe brings up the idea of dehumanization in the reading. It is as Africa is this backdrop to everything else going on. He states how it should not be recognized as some prop that is ridden dry of the human factor. One main point/question he is trying to answer is "the dehumanization of Africa and Africans which this age-long attitude has fostered and continues to foster in the world" (9).

I want to take this and relate this whole idea of dehumanization to Apocalypse Now. The movie represented to me the sort of hazy and surreal landscape. The movie also shows how the American forces (Willard and his men) were hardly even seeing the Vietcong. Soldiers in the movie were taking the whole landscape of Vietnam has a huge prop. To me it was as if they were performing a play. Soldiers helicopter in, blow up an entire village, completely disregard an person, then surf. 
What an idea.... Such as the theme in An Image Of Africa. Where is the human factor, this factor of human life. 

An Image of Africa Blog 5

An Image of Africa is the published and amended version of the Chancellor’s Lecture given by Chinua Achebe at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in February 1975. The text is considered to be part of the critical Postcolonial movement, which advocates that Europeans consider the viewpoints of non-European nations, as well as peoples coping with the effects of colonialism. Colonialism was an oppressive economic system that Europeans used to systematically undercut developing nations and their peoples. Achebe supports the idea that European nations have violently impeded the civil lives of many nations throughout the world, both with the use of trade and warfare, throughout An Image of Africa. Achebe’s objection to the Heart of Darkness is best exemplified when he states “Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as “the other world,” the atheists of Europe and therefore of civilization, a place where man’s vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant bestiality” (3 Chinua Achebe). The idea that colonialism has visible effects in a modern world is a theme also present in Apocalypse Now. Throughout Apocalypse Now there are images of warfare that show the unfavorable side effects that the war can produced, supporting the idea that the Vietnam War was a war of attrition and had no real purpose. In the scene where Willard arrives at camp and first meets the Colonel he joins the soldiers in their mission to destroy a Vietnamese town, specifically because that town is located on good surfing grounds. These soldiers exemplify childlike behaviors throughout the battle scene, such as playing music during their raid of the village, their whimsical behavior towards each other and their mission to take the village in order to surf. The irresponsible behavior of the soldiers demonstrates how these 'privileged' Americans have little regard for their actions and toy with warfare and its consequences, like a game. Although the soldiers are not colonial imperialists there are moments within Apocalypse Now where the viewer sympathizes with the locals that appear to be repressed under the might of the American military.

Blog 5

   I think Achebe's objection to heart of darkness is would be the view they have on the indigenous people the inhabit the area.  They are described as free monsters because the men on the river do not understand what they are seeing.  They are unaccustomed to what is common in the region.  Do to this misunderstanding they fear it and describe it as something it is not, something to be feared.  The direct correlation that you can see between the story and the movie is the white man coming down the river seeing things they have never seen before and out of fear of these things treat and describe it in a way that regards them to lower than human standards.  This is done to cope with the fear they have, just as in the movie the boat of innocent Vietnamese people are massacred by the men on the boat because "Mr. Clean" freaks out when the women runs to protect her puppy.
     Misconceptions seems to be the common thing in all the stories read and the movie watched.  From most of these misconceptions fear is born.  Out of this fear comes the irrational decision making and thinking that can be seen through out both.  In "An Image of Africa" the fear that is born comes from ignorance.  They judge what the indigenous people are doing as barbaric and, due to their ignorance of the people practices and beliefs they are seen as the unsavory.  In the movie the fear is born out of not wanting to die, as well as ignorance to what is good and what is evil in there situation. At least in the movies the lines are a little more blurred than in the story.

The madness of war

Now due to the fact that my schedule has been completely hectic lately, I was only able to focus in on certain parts of the movie, most likely being that I starting watching it around 5:00 in the morning, so I will try my best to answer this!  Apocalypse Now, as we all know, is a movie about the Vietnam War and the effects it has on the soldiers and veterans who partook in it.  Much of the movie is seen from the perspective of Captain Willard who (as we are shown from square one) has become a desensitized shell of what he used to be, lonely longing for nothing but to return to the jungle where he “learned” to become what he was, a real soldier.  However, as we see in this movie, the term “real soldier” comes with its costs.  The true soldier we see Willard as is actually his former self brought to madness, as easily shown in one of the first scenes of the movie where he strips naked in his hotel room, breaks his mirror, and lathers his own blood all over his bed and body.  And that’s not where the madness ends either.  We also see this madness depicted in Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore, from the first moments we see him in the movie we can tell there’s SOMETHING slightly off about him.  Could it be the casual cowboy hat he wears amongst the maze of combat helmets?  It certainly could be.  Or could another reason be that he is crazed out of his mind.  What we see in Colonel Kilgore is also a hardened shell of a former man, much like Willard.  He treats even the most severe situations like they’re nothing and even wants to leave his mark on the bodies that he more than likely hadn’t killed single-handedly.  The connections to this movie and The Things They Carried, I believe, extend just slight beyond the content itself.  I think that the themes shared between the movie and the book speak out more than the events themselves.  For example, in this movie (bear with me here), one of my favorite things to watch in the movie is that decayed state of mind the soldiers begin to grow to and the severity of the events that usually follow.  I feel this movie was able to capture a majority of what Tim O’Brien was trying to go for in his writing; and that is being able to show the severity and horror that war brings to the soldiers who fight in it.

Apocalypse Now

     Apocalypse Now has many themes that relate to what we have been talking about in class, but I think one of the most prevalent is how war changes a soldier. Particularly in this film, the soldiers become animalistic and unsympathetic, and they look at all of the civilians as the enemy, no matter their age, gender, or level of innocence. The civilians aren't safe in their cities, and the American soldiers make it a point that they know that. The soldiers have no regard for the lives of the civilians in the lands they are occupying, and they almost make it seem like they are intruders in their own land, and that they are getting in the soldiers' way.
     For example, when the American army launches an attack on a civilian town just so that Kilgore can go watch Lance surf, they are completely disregarding the families below them, and they don't care at all. At the same time, they play music that pumps them up and makes them angry and hyper, and in a way, they turn killing civilians into a game they are playing with themselves.
     These actions are not characteristics of civilized men, they are characteristics of hunters, which makes me feel like the soldiers take on animalistic qualities as the war goes on.

apocalypse meow

Madness is ever present in Apocalypse Now. For example, the very first scene is a napalm montage set to The Doors. The main character is also introduced in a scene where he shows classic PTSD symptoms, expresses his desire to go fight again, and then drunkenly destroys his room. Each time someone or some place is introduced, Coppola shows us a different type of wartime insanity.

As Willard and his crew go farther north towards Cambodia, the madness increases. Chain of command devolves, and the soldiers the crew meet do increasingly erratic and crazy things. The Air Cavs blow up a village so they can surf (during combat), a USO show is torn to pieces by American soldiers, and the soldiers of the last outpost in Vietnam build the same bridge every day, just so they can report that the road is open. The insanity culminates with Kurtz's corpse castle and his bizarre followers (photo journalist in particular).

These extreme examples of madness reveal the psychological strain, and sometimes changes that soldiers go through during war. Lance is a good example of someone succumbing to the mental burden of Vietnam.

Apocalypse Reflections

I noticed in the movie there were elements that related to The Things They carried. It also had themes that mirror the effects we learned about of PTSD.  In the beginning of the movie the character narrating the opening sequence says something along the lines of feeling as though the walls are closing in around him. Anxiety and flashbacks are common with PTSD and think this shows here. We see the fans of the hotel room shown with the sounds of helicopters causing us to make the same association the character is experiencing. Then the camera darts from the the door, over the window, as if trying to find a way to escape the ever closing walls.  Contradictions between the music and the visuals replicate O’briens common “beauty versus gory” theme. Like the slow tranquil music playing over explosions and burning palm trees. Much like O’brien, Coppola goes against audience expectations. In the movie, women are flown in the entertain the men and Captain Willard looks uneasy the entire time, moving to the edge of the crowd, again trying to escape. It is only when the chaos starts between his fellow soldiers that he sits down and relaxes. Even smiles. 

Another connection between book and movie is how characters reach their breaking points. In The Things They Carried, Bowker’s breaking point isn’t the fear, or lack of strength, but the smell of the shit field. In the movie Chef’ breaking point is a tiger. Both unexpected. Lastly, something else I think represents how war and PTSD have the ability to remove you from reality is when the beach they want to surf on is being bombed and the main officer is just kneeling there shirtless, telling a war story about his victory and his soldiers are looking around frantically and jumping at the explosions. 

I think overall a main similarity between O’brien and Coppola is their use “surface” material to represent profound and complex truths about war. 

Cloudy Day

In Apocalypse Now it easy to see how Captain Willard basically is insane. In the beginning of the movie, in the hotel in Saigon, Willard is struggling to grasp reality in many ways. He talks about how when he was out on the battlefield all he wanted was to be back at home with his wife but when he was with his wife all he wanted was to be back out on the battlefield. In the movie he is asked to kill a US colonel. I believe this shook up Williard even more because he had been ordered to kill VC soldiers his whole time in Vietnam and now he is asked to kill an American, an important American soldier at that. 

A big theme from O'Brien that echoes in this film is PTSD. The episode in the beginning of the film has PTSD written all over it. The flashbacks were portrayed to be extremely vivid, which drives the Captain to punch a mirror and injure himself. At the end of this episode he is ordered to carry out a special operation. Its what he wanted, to be back in the jungle (Vietnam) but its also what he did not need at the time. He needs help. This mission would not help him it would hurt him even more, psychologically.