Heart Of Darkness Women Analysis

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Women in the Heart of Darkness

In the Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, women exist solely for the male characters without voices. In the book itself, not one of the few women introduced were given a name. They are both unworthy of a name and irrelevant to the main characters and narrators. Even the women to whom Marlow turns to find him a job has no name. Instead, the women are known merely by their actions and words. We come to know his aunt through her diction and prattling on in a loquacious manner. Similarly, the fiancé of Kurtz is merely known as the Intended. This capitalized noun ‘intended’ sums up her entire purpose and relevance to Kurtz and Marlow. In Africa, herself, the reader must presume that women are indistinguishable from their male counterparts. Presumably, they make up half of the population. Yet Marlow makes no remarks on them. They are invisible to him and indistinguishable from men. The only women that Marlow acknowledges is Kurtz’s African Mistress. Yet to him, she is no women but an “apparition” (77). She is something other worldly. The men on the steamer are so afraid of her they state “If she had offered to come aboard I really think I would have tried to
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The Intended and the African Mistress are merely foils to Kurtz. His Intended is a prime example of Kurtz’s ability to entrance loyalty and love. The reader is left stunned and dumb-founded in her undying devotion to. As Marlow states “But while we were still shaking hands, such a look of awful desolation came upon her face that I perceived she was one of those creatures that are not the playthings of Time. For her he had died only yesterday.” His intended has become enwrapped in the mythology that surrounds Kurtz. The readers are left to wonder if Kurtz could inspire this while hundreds of miles away what else could he inspire in those he directly interacts

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