Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad discusses the fragileness of the mind and how wilderness can
affect it. Kurtz, a great businessman turned sour, has two contrasting love
interests. His mistress is a native woman, who is wise and understands the man
in front of her is not a great man, but she cares for him anyway. The Intended,
on the other hand, is deluding herself into believing Kurtz’ mind has not
fallen away and that he is doing great things in the uncivilized Africa and
helping those savages learn the how to become normal members of society. She
seems plastic and fake. In Imperialist Europe at this time, a woman’s worth was
measured on whether or not she could give children to her husband. With Kurtz
in the state he is in, it is doubtful she could do that if they did marry.
Therefore, in the eyes of society, she is worthless since she would most likely
not marry.
His mistress is described as both “gorgeous” and “superb”,
a direct contrast to the Intended’s description. She is Africa. She is
beautiful and deadly and “barbarous”, but she still entices and enraptures
Kurtz. She knows Kurtz’ mind is gone, but she still stays and, when he is taken
away on the boat, she throws her arms up toward the heavens to portray to
Kurtz that she does not want him to leave her. She wants him to stay in Africa
with her. She is alive and hot-blooded and she loves Kurtz for more than the
power and social class he could give her. In comparison to her, the Intended is
frail, meek, and insignificant.
As soon as you began your argument I think it is pretty obvious whose love is stronger. Love is a very tricky concept. However, love that can endure, love that can thrive even in the darkest of situations is real love. Love which is just to gain money or power cannot even compare to this unconditional love, as that love will dwindling away with other materialistic things. My favorite part of your response to the prompt is your comparison between the African woman and Africa. She really does embody the sense of Africa. So does this in turn tell us that Africa itself is not evil, as she is not depicted as evil?
ReplyDeleteExcellent job comparing and contrasting the two women that Kurtz has romantic interests in. I agree completely on which person Kurtz felt the most sincere form of love towards and think you explained why in a great way. I also think your choice of words in saying that the mistress is Africa was the best possible choice when trying to describe her. Do you think that due to the large contrast between the two characters that they could be symbols for the best parts of one society (the mistress) and the worst parts of another (the intended)? Maybe these two characters are meant to represent the amount of morals and values both societies have? Of course, these are just other possible interpretations.
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