Heart Of Darkness Analysis

In his novel Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad portrays the role of a woman to be the source that the man relies on when he can no longer bear the harsh realities of the world, and utilizes the idealistic world she creates to obtain a small sliver of hope for the future. He uses the character Kurtz, a European captain who is searching for ivory in the heart of the Congo in Africa, to display how a man will need a woman and her world in order to keep his sanity. When entering the world of the woman, the man will be able to find comfort because he is able to take a break from the real world and find solace in the world of the woman, using her as an audience to display his emotions to. The solace that the man finds in the woman is a way to keep his sanity because the truths that one discovers may leave one with pain and emotions that can drive him mad, while a woman's separate world may cause one to become blind from the actualities of society, the temporary blindness will help not only a man but also the woman to continue to have high hopes and ambitions in order to save themselves from falling into the wrath of reality and succumbing to the darkness that may cause one to fall victim to savagery due to embracing too much pain that comes from the reality.

A woman's world may be disconnected from the realities of the actual world, but it acts as a safety blanket to secure sanity for not only herself, but also for a man to avoid losing hope. When Marlow, a sailor who sets off to the Congo for exploration, speaks to his aunt before his departure, he sees how women's worlds are “too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset” (77). The world of a woman is set up so that she can bloc...

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...ty that people live in. Women create this idealistic world to be able to retain hopes that they will be able to achieve their goals and survive in the real world. This world also becomes an integral part of a man's life because without the woman's optimism, the man will not have encouragement to believe in himself. Conrad intentionally portrays women as a figure of hope to demonstrate that society needs hope in order to survive. Even the tiniest sliver of positivity will motivate one to push towards their goals. Without this hope, one can easily be taken by the darkness and become lost forever. To have an object of hope to hold onto will save one from losing himself and fall prey to savagery. The world of the woman exists in the real world to act as a sliver of hope to show to society and encourage people to find a source of hope to pull through during dark times.