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"HEART OF DARKNESS".

Analyzes roles & symbolism of female characters, focusing on author's chauvinism.

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Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness presents a story-within-a-story, creating a central narrator, Marlow, who tells an audience of four a tale about Kurtz, an agent for a Colonial enterprise in the Belgian Congo. Marlow recounts the tale at the outset of a voyage; he has a seaman's "propensity to spin yarns," but the story is told not to amuse his shipmates--it is told to make them think about significant political, spiritual, and moral issues (Conrad 9). The unidentified first narrator wants to hear about Marlow's own adventure, but Marlow recounts instead the fate of Kurtz, and how Marlow's own journey into the Congo became a quest to understand the workings of Kurtz' mind (Conrad 11).
Marlow, deeply attracted to the notion of exploring Africa, signs up to pilot a steam boat up the Kissai River, taking the place of a murdered company agent. Marlow's narrative is a story

Marlow's narrative is a story stripped of names anddetails, focussing on the physical journey as a metaphor for spiritualconfrontation of man's ultimate depravity, symbolized by Kurtz' "monstrouspassions" (Conrad 57). The woman, who isironically moving with a sense of stately ceremony, can see neither her ownSelf, nor the world in which she moves. They live in a world of their own andthere had never been anything like it and never can be . I, CharlieMarlow, set the women to work--to get a job! In the nextmoment, besides reinforcing the social and religious structures of society,she reinforces colonial imperialism by telling Marlow "brightly" that "thelabourer is worthy of his hire" (Conrad 16). Before he sets out on the voyage, Marlow visits hisaunt, whom he condescendingly describes as a "dear enthusiastic soul"(Conrad 12). Almost disembodied, she is imaged as having a "halo" and an"unearthly glow in the darkness" (Conrad 74); she is intended to seemfoolishly sacred, to represent a dreamlike image of unquestioning faith.To further this image, she still wears mourning "more than a year since hisdeath" and she has just nursed Kurtz' mother, faithful to the end even untoher man's mother. The blackcivilization in Marlow's narrative is a convenient canvas on which toproject the civilized man's darkness of mind and soul; women similarlyfunction as a symbolic background for the action, values, and ideology ofmen--all male authors in the text, including Conrad, Marlow, and Kurtz. Many people define chauvinism as a kind of misogyny--a consciousantagonism toward, and dismissal of, women. In a "dead silence" in the city ofthe "whited sepulchre," Marlow finds a door which is "ponderously ajar"(Conrad 13). The role of women as Fate, even as Fatal, is chiefly illustrated bythe pair of feminine representations that frame Marlow's narrative. Short (Marlow pointedly translates Kurtz' name twice in the text); shewould have become a woman who, like Kurtz, fell short of the human ideal.But she didn't become Mrs. Kurtz; she remains forever faithful, forever TheIntended but unrealized Fate that inspires man. Her ornaments, however, which inthis description appear to be "splendid" are mocked and trivialized earlierin the text: glass beads are "trash" and brass wire is "worthless" and"ridiculous" (Conrad 26, 42). But this womandid not attempt to cross the river, which is the symbol for the spiritualjourney. There are two more women in this text. Her dresswas an plain as un umbrella cover, and she turned round without aword and preceded me into the waiting room (Conrad 13). Thespiritual quest to confront an essential nature in Heart of Darkness is notthe journey of humanity, but of man. In the text there are onlysix women, four of whom the reader actually sees, and one of whom thereader actually hears: the Knitters, the Aunt, the Wife of the HighDignitary, the Splendid Savage Mistress, and The Intended. Heavens" (Conrad 12)! . She listens without "mental reservation" (does she have amind?) without "suspicion" (does she have the faculty to suspect?) andwithout "a thought for herself" (does she have a self about which tothink?). She is not described as a "woman," in fact,because she is not even a person. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness presents a story-within-a-story,creating a central narrator, Marlow, who tells an audience of four a taleabout Kurtz, an agent for a Colonial enterprise in the Belgian Congo.Marlow recounts the tale at the outset of a voyage; he has a seaman's"propensity to spin yarns," but the story is told not to amuse hisshipmates--it is told to make them think about significant political,spiritual, and moral issues (Conrad 9). This is how he first describes the Knitters: Two women, one fat and the other slim, sat on straw-bottomed chairs knitting black wool. Thissets the stage for a consistent vision of women who must be constituted bythe type of their relationship to their male lovers or relatives. The sketch shows "a woman draped and blindfoldedcarrying a lighted torch. The background was sombre--almost black. And although the reader cannot say with certainty whether the womanis African or caucasian, the woman is associated with somberness and asinister effect, which throughout the story are associated with theblackness of man's "animal" and "savage" soul. The Wife of theHigh Dignitary, mentioned once, cannot exist, since she has neither namenor personality, without the High Dignitary (Conrad 15). It is through the Aunt's socialintercession with The Wife that Marlow secures his position, which hetrivializes for this very reason: "My dear aunt's influential acquaintanceswere producing an unexpected effect on [the brickmaker]. Heart of Darkness is a story told by a man to men about a man'sexalted failure to live as a man should live. Here the water, when it is perceived as positive and friendly, isimagined as being masculine. Is the woman black or white? (ed). As if to foreshadow his own lie to the Intended, Marlow has alreadyhinted at his philosophy that posits woman as unreal extensions ofmasculine identity. I nearly burstinto a laugh" (Conrad 28). Marlow,fascinated, is left to carry Kurtz' effects to Kurtz' European fiancee, whohad had knowledge neither of Kurtz' evil ambitions nor of his blackmistress. New York: Norton,1988.----------------------- 11 She is the personification of an idealand a civilization, which, in order to be protected, must be lied to. Earlier Marlow confides to his shipmates theludicrousness, the oddity, of his having had to enlist a woman's help toget a job: "Then--would you believe it--I tried the women. Theharlequin "nervously" tells Marlow, "If she had offered to come aboard Ireally think I would have tried to shoot her" (Conrad 61). Themovement of the woman was stately, and the effect of the torchlight on theface was sinister" (Conrad 27-28). The Knitters guard the entrance to the office of the Director of theTrading Company, and they are significant not just for the intensity withwhich they are described, but for the number of references to them thatMarlow makes throughout his narrative. Voiceless and speechless, this woman assumes the same posture of Fatethat The Intended later replicates with her outstretched arms. Finally, it is significant that evenwhile Conrad invests these women with Latin phrases like "Morituri tesalutant" (Conrad 14), thereby ensuring that the reader must see their roleas Fates Guarding the Gates of Hell, he strips them of self-knowledge oftheir role. The role of the feminine is reserved for, andreduced to, an "inscrutable" fate. At thebeginning of his voyage he encounters two symbolical and fatal women, TheKnitters, and at the end of his voyage he encounters another, The Intended. Each exists only insofar asshe is identified with a man: the Aunt with Marlow, the Splendid SavageMistress and the Intended with Kurtz, and the Knitters with the "paleplumpness" (Conrad 14), or the man who owns the company. But this definition is no moreaccurate than one which says racism is limited to the KKK: both chauvinismand racism occur when women and Africans are "used" as literary andsymbolic backdrops for the spiritual journey of white men. Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness. The first and most important commonality of the women in the text isthat not one of the six exists autonomously. Although Marlow makes a point of saying "she was notyoung--I mean not girlish" (Conrad 73), Marlow repeatedly calls her a"girl" (Conrad 74, 75, 76). The gist of this is repeated when Marlow emerges from his interview,so that upon his exit as well as his entrance the reader meets TheKnitters, who thus function as a framing device within a framing devicewithin a third framing device (the story-within-a-story). She is described, moreover, in pairs ofadjectives in which one adjective grants her some positive quality followedby an adjective which takes it away. Shenever questions Kurtz' goodness; she is "illumined by the unextinguishablelight of belief and love" (Conrad 73). But more importantly, she is notallowed to question herself--because Conrad has created not a woman with asense of self, but a symbolic foil who exists only to frame, puppet, andinspire her man. From the beginning of the narrative women are reductively associatedwith the supernatural, with luck and fate and destiny. The Knittershave "cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old eyes" (Conrad 14). She is the Fate thatallows man to believe in himself as an imperial and rapacious power. The repetitionstrengthens the portentous quality, and retrospectively the reader seesthat they have indeed guarded the gates of hell, since they mark thebeginning of Marlow's voyage into the heart of darkness in Africa. Both belong to Kurtz asaestheticized symbols of beauty, but both are presented to the readerthrough the unseeing eyes of Marlow. Yet when Marlow's boat finallyreaches Kurtz' outpost, Marlow sees that Kurtz has himself become the heartof darkness: he has bowed down to depravity, to power, and to lust, rulingover the native population and accepting their sacrifices to him as if hewere a god himself. She dispenses tea, sits sweetly in a "ladylike drawing room"and mouths a missionary gospel: "...she talked about 'weaning thoseignorant millions from their horrid ways" (Conrad 15-16). ." (Conrad 16).This world that women inhabit preexists and outlasts man's own world,ostensibly. Nearthe beginning of the journey, Marlow is intrigued by an oil sketch painted,he learns, by Kurtz. In a story inwhich nameless characters are frequently reduced to their functions(bricklayers, helmsmen, the Accountant, the Lawyer, the Director, etc.), itis significant that the only thing the Wife actually does is gossip, atraditionally "female" quality. "It's queer," he exclaims, "howout of touch with truth women are! Therefore although she may be"passionate," she is also "tenebrous"--not only dark-skinned, but gloomy ofsoul and, by inference, morally depraved. The slim one got up and walkedstraight at me--still knitting with downcast eyes--and only justas I began to think of getting out of her way, as you would fora somnambulist, stood still, and looked up. This portrait is recreated in the "character" of Kurtz' SplendidSavage Lover, who first appears to Marlow in stately movement, like thewoman in the portrait: She walked with measured steps, draped in striped andfringed cloths, treading the earth proudly with a slight jingle andflash of barbarous ornaments....[she wore] brass wire gauntlets tothe elbow...innumerable glass beads on her neck, bizarre things,charms, gifts of witch-men that hung about her, glittered andtrembled at every step...She was savage and superb, wild-eyed andmagnificent...ominous and stately...fecund and mysterious...tenebrous and passionate (Conrad 6 ).This passage reveals much. When Marlow arrives again in the city of the "whited sepulchre," he"has to wait" for the Intended in a room whose piano looks like "a sombreand polished sarcophagus" (Conrad 72).Her forehead, as Kurtz' was described earlier, is also "smooth and white"(Conrad 73). These are the women and the references to women which comprise Heartof Darkness. The absence of this information ismarked in a story whose every character is slotted and characterized byrace. In addition tothese "characters," Marlow also makes several pronouncements about women asthey define or threaten men; moreover, Marlow's (or Conrad's) figurativelanguage also images women, likening literal objects to the feminine, orthe feminine to literal objects. Andalthough Marlow talks often enough about moral ugliness and spiritualdepravity, his description of the Old Fat Knitter's wart is the onlydescription of physical ugliness. She would have become Mrs. Kurtz--orMrs. Yet when the sea is not being imagedas Destiny, it loses its female character: "The voice of the surf heardnow and then was a positive pleasure, like the speech of a brother" (Conrad17). The unidentified first narratorwants to hear about Marlow's own adventure, but Marlow recounts instead thefate of Kurtz, and how Marlow's own journey into the Congo became a questto understand the workings of Kurtz' mind (Conrad 11). Marlow, deeply attracted to the notion of exploring Africa, signs upto pilot a steam boat up the Kissai River, taking the place of a murderedcompany agent. Here the woman is described in terms ofappearance, as all Conrad's women are. The portrait of the woman suggests acombination of two gendered mythic images: Justice (she is blind) andWisdom (she is holding the torch which illuminates, as Athena holds alamp). They function notas human characters with possible journeys of their own to make, but assymbols of portent. Early on Marlow hears about Kurtz' remarkablecharacter, eloquence, and productivity. The first prefigures the second inthat it is, in fact, an example of Woman as Aestheticized Art Object. At the other end of this framing device is The Intended, Kurtz'nameless fiancee identified only by a label which designates a woman tobecome the fated property of a man. Work CitedKimbrough, R. When Kurtz dies, however, he realizes what he hasbecome; his last words are "The horror--the horror" (Conrad 72)! This story is not about women, and it doesn't have to be.But in its reduction of women to artificial symbols of Fate, the story notonly invests women with a contrived literary falseness; it strips them ofthe chance to leave their sepulchral cities or their confining shores. She, like The Intended, knows her place; she stays on the shore. Marlow sees this world as hazy and borderless because heattributes to women these nonhuman qualities of supernatural fate anddestiny. When he lies to The Intended, he feels he has no other choicethan to lie, since women are "out of touch with truth." Although hehimself hates to lie, his whole conception of women is based on the liethat men tell themselves: women do not inhabit the same world as men. Women in this text are ignorant of Self, period. The purpose of this essay is to trace andanalyze these references to and about women, which function to locatechauvinism, like racism, in an unknowable Other. It is at this point thatMarlow's philosophy about women emerges. Although the role of The Intended is much more significant, it isinteresting to note the parallels between the two representations of women: both wear black, both are associated with the Trading Company andimperialism, both situate Marlow in a waiting room, both present images ofdarkness, both are described in terms of their physical beauty or lack ofit (when the male characters rarely are), and both are frankly associatedwith death and with images of sepulchers. The first sentence of Conrad's narrative establishesthe five men, including Marlow, sitting on the deck of The Nellie--shipsare usually named after women, but this woman's name means "good luck."The first narrator (not Marlow) makes the following figurative associationbetween women and Destiny: "there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unlessit be the sea itself which is the mistress of his existence and asinscrutable as Destiny" (Conrad 9).

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