Prompt 11
There are only three female characters referenced in the heart of darkness; the African mistress, Kurtz's Intended, and Marlow's Aunt. All of women's appearances in the novel are of brevity, the African mistress is only seen after Marlow and the people who survived the boat ride to the Inner Station come to get Kurtz, in this short period of time the Russian trader warns Marlow that she is a woman to be weary of or feared. Kurtz's Intended is introduced a year after Kurtz's death, when Marlow visits her, she is obviously still distraught over her fiancée's death even though it was over a year ago, and suggests her oblivion to Kurtz's happenings while away on business. Then there is the Aunt who is introduced in the beginning of Marlow's tale, as a loving relative whose connection to the Company gets Marlow his job as a steam captain. The women can be categorized into two groups of people the naïve and the knowing. The so-called Western women who are supposed to represent knowledge and understanding are perceived as ignorant by Marlow. His Aunt, believes imperialism as an inherent good that brings civilized culture and religion to savages and advances the human race, but these ideals contrast against what Marlow experiences while in the jungle. Kurtz's Intended is completely ignorant of who her fiancée was and what he was doing when he died, she was thoroughly convinced of Kurtz's love for her, though the time the reader got to know Kurtz evidence suggested otherwise. Both the Aunt and Kurtz's Intended reinforce Marlow's idea that women don't experience reality for what it is, but live in a dream world. However, the native Mistress contradicts the Western women with her appearance of regality and her aura of influence on Kurtz and her fellow natives. She has no real power, but controls and manipulates and has more power per say than the Western women.
I love the way that you analyzed the two types of women, the naive and the knowing, and elaborated on their meaning and purpose in the story. It is interesting how one would assume that the knowing is the women form the civilized country are in fact the ones who are the most naive. They have no power or influence and are seen as china dolls which must be kept on a shelf. On the other hand, the native woman has power. She knows of life and its struggles and influences everything around her. She truly knows and experiences life. That is so beautifully complex and complicated.
ReplyDeleteAdriane,
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting how you categorized the two types of women int he novel. Marlow perceiving the Western women who could be "intelligent and knowing" as ignorant is especially insightful as it connects to the theme of ignorance in the novel. It also reinforces the theme of division in the novel when you asserted that the Western woman, not the natives, are the knowing and intelligent women. The white women are the intelligent ones who are not naive. Racist and divided, or not?
And there are also the women who are knitting when Marlow first goes to the offices of the Company. The might be a bridge between the two types of characters. On the one hand, they are actually ignorant of what is going on. They just sit in Europe and knit. But symbolically, they can stand for so much more. Perhaps their work for the company allows the evil of imperialism to spread, and so they sit there and weave a cloth of darkness as their work spreads evil throughout the Congo. It certainly is weird (given how important it would seem the women in the story are) that they are only briefly mentioned.
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