Heart of Darkness

The world of women was vastly different to modern times. The unsettling truths of the view of men at this time were disconcerting “they—the women I mean—are out of it—should be out of it. We must help them to stay in that beautiful world of their own, lest ours get worse” (80). Ultimately the voice of Marlow thinks that women are naïve, delicate beings that should be sheltered from everything because they are too delicate to handle the truth. As the narrator says, “it’s queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own” ( 28). Marlow frequently says that women are the keepers of naïve illusions but their role is important, because those naïve illusions that he refers to are the basis of societal fiction. The role of women are the justification of European colonial expansion and imperialism. And in return, the women are the benefit from the wealth their men attain, and they become objects upon the shoulders of men that display them as their level of success and status. Kurtz’s Intended represents this particular role, his Intended embodies, faith and naive innocence. She only actually devotes herself to an image of Kurtz instead of the man himself. The woman’s has a sincere character and a high sense of morality. Marlow notices and describes that “she was not very young… not girlish. She had a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering” (p. 119). Indeed she represents her culture and race she living in the realm of fiction. “A mystery; and yet the terms of light in which he speaks of it relate this quality to the idealism and faith embodied in a figure who is herself a core of light, Kurtz's Intended” (Ridley 6) She believes that she was in love with Kurtz but she didn’t even know who he re...

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.... The native mistress embodies a primitive darkness. From Marlow's descriptions she reflects “the mysterious impenetrable jungle with all its secret rites and forces” and as well “also exercises control over it. She possesses the ability to change the face of the landscape itself (Bode ). Marlow uses harsh diction to describe her saying that she was “savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress...the immense wilderness ... stretched tragically her bare arms after us over the somber and glittering river.” (35). Her role sort of represents Kurtz’s lustful side, and she embodies this part of his personality while also representing the savage jungle. Kurtz's African mistress reflects the mighty female force of the jungle. While Kurtz intended represents the Europe’s delusional culture of their society.