This description is much kinder, much more respectful, than the way he described women at the start of the story. This change reflects Marlow’s own mental change, the transformation which he underwent during his journey. Marlow (and indirectly, Conrad) shows he has respect for this woman, and recognizes her as a strong individual. In the beginning of the book, as previously mentioned, Marlow describes women as “out of touch,” and “in a world of their own,” (Conrad. 28) but after his journey through the nexus of the Congo, Marlow realizes that women are similar to men.
The racism that was so normalized among Conrad and his peers has since placed his novel under attack by Chinua Achebe, who claimed that “Art is not intended to put people down. If so, the art would ultimately discredit itself” and that if it pulled out and dehumanized such a large portion of the human race, it could truly not be considered a work of art (Phillips). Yet, the racism embedded in the novel played a much larger part than merely being racism. Both Conrad and Marlow are clearly racist, but Conrad knows that the superiority held by the Europeans was wrong, and he uses Marlow to view that and to show that there is a possibility for it to change. He knows that although he could see no alternative, it was possible just as he saw with Imperialism.
Freeman claims in his essay “E. Nesbit’s New Woman Gothic” that ‘the treatment of gender and sexuality’ is an important issue in the Victorian Gothic, ‘with plentiful analysis of the fear of feminism and the New Woman’ (454). We can see this both in “Carmilla” and in Dracula. Women in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) play an essential role. As a matter of fact, the only male vampire in the text is Dracula himself, and all the other vampires that we can find in the novel are female.
Ignorance of another's personal values or situation results in an impassable schism between the two parties. People fail to understand each other, and as such, they regard each other in lower lights. In “Heart of Darkness”, Joseph Conrad, through Marlow, writes his novella through a lense of ignorance and the perspective of the typical white person of the time in order to relate his story to the reader. Marlow and the accountant are contrasted with Kurtz to display the effects of evil on an individual. The majority of the novella is told from Marlow’s perspective.
It is a common misconception that women never worked before the war and that large amounts of women suddenly streamed into the workforce picking up work that they have never done before. However, contrary to popular belief, that is not entirely true. It was definitely the case that middle to upper class American families could afford to let the woman stay at home as they were not required to work or to contribute to the household expenses. However, many women of a lower economic status and minority groups had to work. They were not able to enjoy the luxury that was staying home to look after their kids or husband.
The sentence after Marlow’s explanation of the “abominable “acts, suggests why Marlow ironically draws closer to Kurtz. The “but” at the start of the sentence emphasizes Marlow’s need to see Kurtz in a positive view. This suggests that Marlow makes the decision to see the light in the darkness of the situation when he states, “But it was a victory!”. Our attention is drawn back to the notion of “victory”. Marlow feels proud of Kurtz and for this reason he remains “loyal” to him.
Many critics, including A.M. Roberts and Haydar Ali, have expressed their discontent regarding the sexism in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Feminist writer Simone the Beauvoir explains her theory on the social stance of women in her book The Second Sex. In the chapter Myth and Reality this theory can be applied to several women described in “Heart of Darkness”. Both the intended and the African mistress of Kurtz are examples of a false sense of ‘mystery’ which places them in a separate group in society that de Beauvoir describes in The Second Sex. The most prominent point of The Second Sex is to illustrate how women are segregated from society by men, something which happens a lot in Heart of Darkness.
The content in the story pointed out the conventional boundaries that were expected of the colonists but broken during the colonization. Colonizers such as Marlow and Kurtz would not have acted the way they did during their voyage, nor treat individuals in their society like they treated the native Africans. The novella showed dehumanization, imperialism, and madness among the characters. Although Heart of Darkness is still prevalent in literature, individuals would not act this way and perceive the character’s behavior as normal. In fact, it’d be perceived as beyond the
The Wasteland, written by T.S Eliot, was shortly written after Eliot read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Both authors uses symbols in their texts to create a connection to life, death, fear, and self-reflection. Conrad and Eliot both use the symbolism of water in their texts to create the meaning of life and death. In Heart of Darkness, the symbolism of water is used to create a new life. In the beginning of Heart of Darkness, Marlow asks if his “fellows remember… {when he] turned into a fresh-water sailor” (Conrad 70).
The seemingly simple story about one man’s journey into unchartered territory in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has proven itself to be one of the most important novels written in the twentieth century. However, the importance of Conrad’s story has changed throughout the years. There have been a plethora of interpretations and readings of Heart of Darkness since it was first published, and it seems that audiences of Conrad’s novel will never be able to come to one, concrete interpretation and explanation of the story. The character Kurtz’s final words, “The horror, the horror” have always been an important topic of discussion, and although audiences will never be able to tap into Conrad’s mind in order to learn what Kurtz’s final words were meant to represent, critics have nonetheless been able to come up with their own conclusions. Although critics like Chinua Achebe disregard the importance of Kurtz’s famous last words, there is significance in evaluating the delusional yet profoundly human reaction Kurtz has in realizing that he is about to succumb to death.