Question
Contrast Kurtz’ black mistress with his Intended. What is the function of each?
Response
The only thing that Kurtz’ Intended and his mistress had in common was him.
The mistress was first described as “wild” and “gorgeous.” She wore expensive and dazzling jewelry and was decked out in ornaments. Her clothes were flashy and accessorized with charms, amulets, and various other paraphernalia of a mystic origin. She wore brass, fringes, stripes, and copious amounts of various jewels and attractive objects. She was a primal beauty.
When she appears, the clamor and chaos of everyone in the vicinity ceases and they seem to hold her in awe, as if exhibiting the uttermost respect to such an august creature. Her presence was likened unto the soul of the wilderness.
She was essentially portrayed as an African queen.
In this aspect, she serves as a complementary companion to Kurtz. Loved by all the native tribes and unofficial ruler over them all, everyone Kurtz met seemed to bow down and worship him as if he were a minor deity. (Or a cult leader.) The mistress served as an equal, of sorts, commanding much of the same attention and reverence through just her sheer force of personality and presence. Her wild beauty, innate power, and near personification of the African wilderness serves to further emphasize Kurtz’ own power and influence over his surroundings (since only he could deserve such a mistress as she), building him up as something almost inhuman.
She is the cherry to his milkshake.
Kurtz’ Intended is an inverted image of the mistress. The Intended is first described as wearing all black and being very pale. With her, though, her effect came not from what she wore for clothing, but what she wore for her emotions. She looked sorrowful. She exuded an aura of mature pride and grief, loyalty and mourning. She is mentioned by Marlow as having “ a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering.” She had dark eyes that were “guileless, confident, and trustful.” Instead of a wide-eyed savage beauty, the Intended expressed a strong internal will capable of withstanding the onslaught of the pain of loss. Instead of a wild banshee screaming with deafening silence for her pain--as the African had--the Intended is the center of a vortex of internal anguish. Even then, she holds her head up with British pride, in direct contrast to savage nobility.
Because of these antithetic natures, the Intended represents the man of Kurtz. Instead of the god-like persona everyone fell in love with, the Intended’s humble attitude and appearance represent the simple man beneath the glamour. The mistress knew him as a man who commanded raids and skirmishes in his never-ending quest for more ivory to expand his African kingdom. The Intended knew him as the man beneath the power and charisma: the man she fell in love with. She is the part of Kurtz that is just a regular person, and not some glorified deity. She serves as the reminder that Kurtz is still just an Englishman, no matter where he is or what he does.
Brian, it is interesting how you chose to look at the two women as extensions of Kurtz himself. I had previously considered the different associations each woman carried, but did not examine their connections to Kurtz as closely and analytically as you did. The Intended, in her pale, unassuming appearance, seemed to correspond with the naivety of an entire population, ignoring the brutal reality of imperialism in favor of a more honorable and civil view. While the African woman, on the other hand, suggested the wild darkness on the opposing side, showing the more primal, emotive aspects of our nature. Now that you have cast these figures in an even more connected light, I can see how these two contrasting viewpoints may merge together in Kurtz to create a double-sided representation of his character. Since Kurtz seems to be much of an abstraction himself, this duel nature can extend to all people, suggesting the fusion of light and dark in all of us.
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