Heart of Darkness illustrates three different depictions of women. These depictions are the naive woman, the mysterious woman, and the wealthy and influential woman. The sparse mentionings of women reveal the way the writer views their significance. They are never given names and are briefly mentioned throughout his work. In Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness, women are hardly mentioned but play a significant role in revealing the many different aspects of imperialistic Europe.
One of the women that is mentioned by Conrad is the naive woman, who is called The Intended. The Intended is Kurtz’s fiancee and only appears for a brief moment . She is symbolic for what the Europeans believed imperialism to be. The Europeans saw imperialism …show more content…
She symbolizes the incarnation of Africa and its dark mysteries: “draped in striped and fringed clothes, treading the earth proudly,[...] She was savage and superb,wild-eyed and magnificent; there was ominous and stately in her deliberate progress.[...] The colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul.”( 77-76). The way the mistress is dressed corresponds her role as a mistress and and a person of the African contient. As a mistress she is full of life on the other side she has a dark mysteryious life. The passionate kind of life that has vanished from Europe and all the surrounding cities. She is what the Europeons needed, the rebirth of new lifes in eachother just like Kurtz needed her to give life to this side of his personality.
The wealthy and influential woman is Marlows aunt. During this time in the European society there was gender based sexism. “Its queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. [...] Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over”(15). Marlow’s aunt is significant beacuse she is the one who gets him the job as a steamboat captain, which shows she has power that many women did not have during this
One of the women that is mentioned by Conrad is the naive woman, who is called The Intended. The Intended is Kurtz’s fiancee and only appears for a brief moment . She is symbolic for what the Europeans believed imperialism to be. The Europeans saw imperialism …show more content…
She symbolizes the incarnation of Africa and its dark mysteries: “draped in striped and fringed clothes, treading the earth proudly,[...] She was savage and superb,wild-eyed and magnificent; there was ominous and stately in her deliberate progress.[...] The colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul.”( 77-76). The way the mistress is dressed corresponds her role as a mistress and and a person of the African contient. As a mistress she is full of life on the other side she has a dark mysteryious life. The passionate kind of life that has vanished from Europe and all the surrounding cities. She is what the Europeons needed, the rebirth of new lifes in eachother just like Kurtz needed her to give life to this side of his personality.
The wealthy and influential woman is Marlows aunt. During this time in the European society there was gender based sexism. “Its queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. [...] Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over”(15). Marlow’s aunt is significant beacuse she is the one who gets him the job as a steamboat captain, which shows she has power that many women did not have during this