In consideration of the Intended and her destructive naïveté, it is salient to also examine the presence of Kurtz’s “barbarous and superb” mistress (Conrad 175). For, as Chinua Achebe argues in the essay “An Image of Africa,” the Congolese woman is the “savage counterpart to the refined, European” Intended (6). While the white woman exists to represent civilization and its idealistic ignorance, the novel’s only female racial “other” symbolizes the wilderness and its dark truths. Via Marlow’s narration, the reader can observe her steady, scrutinizing, and symbolic presence:
She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her …show more content…
For, as Achebe additionally argues, “there is a bestowal of human expression to the one [woman] and the withholding of it from the other” (6). In terms of the barbarous Congolese warrior, the reader is presented with an image of what Gilbert and Gubar deem the “monster-woman”: she who diverges from idealized traits of femininity in her apparent inhumanity, “aggression,” and “autonomy” (34). In combination with her existence as the oppressed racial “other,” the woman’s lack of delicacy and innocence does not lead her to be perceived as a figure who needs to be safeguarded by white men and their weapons of whitewashed idealism. On the other hand, the Intended fits the ideal, yet pernicious image of the “angel-woman”: she who embodies selflessness, fragility, and submission (Gilbert & Gubar 23). The woman’s delicate nature and “mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering,” place her on a pedestal that needs to be guarded at all costs (Conrad 183). As such, Marlow not only allows the white woman to believe in her own fictions, but he also pulls her further away from the shock of reality when he lies to her about Kurtz’s final words at the end of the novel. While this act of protection may seem like a good deed, it is really a disservice to the sheltered woman and society at large. For, …show more content…
She is a product of man’s assumptions about woman’s naïve fragility, and is inhibited in her exploration of the truths of the world. Thus, she is unable to liberate herself from an existence of self-serving optimism. As such, she is what Virginia Woolf calls the “angel in the house,” but one who has been injuriously chained there (Woolf qtd. in Gilbert & Gubar 17). In her isolated existence of idealism, she is indeed privileged, but she is also left ignorant and stagnant, stuck in a cycle of mourning, falsity, and
She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her …show more content…
For, as Achebe additionally argues, “there is a bestowal of human expression to the one [woman] and the withholding of it from the other” (6). In terms of the barbarous Congolese warrior, the reader is presented with an image of what Gilbert and Gubar deem the “monster-woman”: she who diverges from idealized traits of femininity in her apparent inhumanity, “aggression,” and “autonomy” (34). In combination with her existence as the oppressed racial “other,” the woman’s lack of delicacy and innocence does not lead her to be perceived as a figure who needs to be safeguarded by white men and their weapons of whitewashed idealism. On the other hand, the Intended fits the ideal, yet pernicious image of the “angel-woman”: she who embodies selflessness, fragility, and submission (Gilbert & Gubar 23). The woman’s delicate nature and “mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering,” place her on a pedestal that needs to be guarded at all costs (Conrad 183). As such, Marlow not only allows the white woman to believe in her own fictions, but he also pulls her further away from the shock of reality when he lies to her about Kurtz’s final words at the end of the novel. While this act of protection may seem like a good deed, it is really a disservice to the sheltered woman and society at large. For, …show more content…
She is a product of man’s assumptions about woman’s naïve fragility, and is inhibited in her exploration of the truths of the world. Thus, she is unable to liberate herself from an existence of self-serving optimism. As such, she is what Virginia Woolf calls the “angel in the house,” but one who has been injuriously chained there (Woolf qtd. in Gilbert & Gubar 17). In her isolated existence of idealism, she is indeed privileged, but she is also left ignorant and stagnant, stuck in a cycle of mourning, falsity, and