Blog 8: DW

An allegory is a representation of abstract ideas or principles by character, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form. Apocalypse Now is one big allegory for the Vietnam War because characters and events in the movie represent more than just their simple role in the plot.

Kurtz is a main focus of the movie, but especially of Willard. Willard is assigned to terminate Kurtz's command because the U.S. army officers believe that he has lost his mind and become insane. Kurtz is taught about the power of fear and evil in life and in war when his special ops platoon vaccinates the children of a village. They are brought back to the village shortly after leaving to find all of the vaccinated children had their arms cut off by the North Vietnamese. He began to understand that atrocities and extreme consequences were the only way to get anything done. He said that if he had a whole platoon of men like those at the village, they would have accomplished a lot more in Vietnam. He knows what he has done is wrong, but war has taught him that it is the only way to achieve victory.

Captain Willard is assigned the task of hunting down Kurtz and killing him. Willard doesn't know what he is going to do when he actually finds him, but he becomes driven to find him. He wanted to talk him and just talk to him to find out what made him change. He won't let anything stop him from finding Kurtz and when he does he still doesn't know what to do. It takes Kurtz himself to tell Willard to kill him to get him to do it. Willard also shows the struggles that soldiers will have to face after the war. He is constantly drinking and suffers from flashbacks. He also doesn't know where he belongs. The movie begins with him in his hotel room and he says that when he was in Vietnam, he just wanted to go home and when he was home, he just wanted to go back to Vietnam. Later at the French plantation, the woman asks him if he will go back to America after the war and he says no. He doesn't know where he belongs anymore because he has lost himself and doesn't know what to do when he's not at war.

The members of the boat crew illustrate many different aspects about the war. Chef and Lance exemplify the very strong reliance on drugs as a coping mechanism. They both rely very heavily on drugs to keep them calm and relatively sane in the face of extreme situations that they are put into. Clean represents the youth that naively enter the war. He is only seventeen years old and doesn't seem to fully understand the severity of the war. When Willard shoots the woman the entire boat crew, but especially clean, is astonished, shocked, and disgusted. Chief is in charge of the boat and keeps his cool in every situation, except for when clean dies. This shows that no matter who you are, the war will break you down and get to you eventually.