Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad about a narrated voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in the so-called "heart of Africa". Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the ivory trader Kurtz, which enables Conrad to create a parallel between what Conrad calls "the greatest town on earth", London, and Africa as places of darkness.
Colonel Kurtz
Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, portrayed by Marlon Brando, is a fictional character and the main antagonist of Francis Ford Coppola's film "Apocalypse Now" (1979). Colonel Kurtz is based on the character of a nineteenth-century ivory trader, also called Kurtz, from the novella "Heart of Darkness" (1899) by Joseph Conrad.