The archetypal genre of romance and the notion of the quest have been repeated, de-constructed and re-imagined in various contexts across time, forms of art and mediums. The purpose of this study is to complete a cross-media comparative analysis of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, in order to examine the interconnection between these works, their relation to these underlying archetypal structures, and further illustrate how these intertextual “systems of culture in general” (Allen 1) are applied in order to construct and convey meaning. Particularly, this involves a discussion of how the heroic quest, manifested through Marlow and Willard’s journeys up the River Congo and Nung, is structured in both works in terms of plot. By adopting the framework of Gerard Genette’s taxonomy of intertextuality, this study applies the notion of the “architext” as a method of perceiving and comparing the journey of Marlow and Willard. “Architexturally”, then, this framework manifests itself through the structures of plot as seen in Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth and Northrop Frye’s notion of the romance quest. Here, the inherently modernist context of production of Heart of Darkness is shown to reflect itself through the conflict manifested within the quest-structure, where Marlow’s final meeting with Kurtz is ultimately deflated through irony, and at the level of narration, as the frame narrator’s masked commentary once more exposes the ironic nature associated with the protagonist’s romantic glorification of British imperialist adventures in Africa. Contrastingly, the post-modern application of these archetypal structures in Apocalypse Now presents a more “complete” version of the heroic journey. Through a comparative analysis centered around Genette’s notion of the “hypertext”, however, this study also illustrates how Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now utilizes the art of cinematography, mise-en-scéne and audio to draw upon the thematic aspects of Heart of Darkness. Willard, unlike the ignorant hero Marlow, is not able to fully leave the grasps of his traumatic experiences; ultimately making him, as many returning veterans of war, doomed to repeat and relive the quest of war. This intertextual, cross-media study emphasizes how the audience of Apocalypse Now is invited to function as an equivalent to the judging, reflective frame narrator of Heart of Darkness through the perspective of the camera, and is thus exposed to the cyclical and universal “horrors” of man; where further literary and metaphorical allusions to hell in Conrad’s novel become transferred into a 1970’s Vietnam war context, ultimately signifying how both works are shown to reflect the terrors of imperialism, war and the “heart of darkness” within everyone.
Keywords: Intertextuality, Archetypal Criticism, The Monomyth, The Architext, The Hypertext, Irony.