Saturday, March 23, 2013
Heart of Darkness Prompt #11
The women in this novel take almost "anonymous" roles - that is, only Marlow's aunt is given a name and their identities are not specifically mentioned. The women characters seem to represent a them or an idea, such as the knitting women the Fates from Greek mythology, the African woman perhaps the darkness of Kurtz and the jungle, and the Intended as an embodiment of innocence. They take on these representative, passive, anonymous roles rather than take part in the action or main plot of the story. They don't even really have many speaking lines, except the Intended at the end, but she was showing womanly grief and love for her beloved through her dialogue. The women's importance to the story is being a symbolic force rather than a physical, action force; this shows Conrad or those in his time feel women were supposed to be a passive force, meaning they were to stay back and be the ornament to the big picture, which the men painted. Marlow also mentions that women are not capable of being a driving action force in part I: “It’s queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own . . . It’s too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset.”
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I agree that in Heart of Darkness women are portrayed as a symbolic force rather than a physical force which drives the men. However, in the story symbolism plays the most important role, perhaps women are important but in a different way than men. Conrad does, however, put women in a bad (demeaning) light throughout the story. Like Maggie said, the only woman who is given a name is Marlow’s aunt. Perhaps nothing is in a name, but not giving someone a name makes them anonymous and unimportant to plot. Once again Maggie hits a very good point, during the time in which the novel was written women were (for the most part) “side-shows” to the main show…the men.
ReplyDeleteI don’t even know if the women play a symbolic role. I think that is just how women were viewed at this time and Joseph Conrad portrayed them as exactly that. Sure there is a difference in the Intended and the mistress in what they represent, but this relates to the debate on whether the book is racist or not. Of course there are sexist and racist views conveyed, but I don’t think the book intentionally tried to make these angles, they just occurred in this time frame and it would have been weird in fact if Conrad had consciously chosen not to include these factors.
ReplyDeleteMaggie, I agree with you that women are portrayed as a background force, as the saying goes "only to be seen not heard." The way I see it, the way Conrad through Marlow objectifies the women like he does the natives of the area. This relationship could symbolize that women, like the natives, to these men were of a different species and they could not understand them. I agree I find it interesting the Intended is the only lady that is allowed to speak in the novella, but also one has to look and see that Conrad did not use her actual name. Overall, I agree with what you said but I am not entirely sold on the women as a symbol.
ReplyDeleteLeah, I agree with you. I'm not positive many of the images in the novella were intentionally meant to imply seixst and racist ideas to an extent. Rather, it was the social norm and that was simply their role in society, although women are in fact depicted as being inferior. It is simply a clear image of culture during that time. Like you said, it would have somewhat odd to exclude these factors in the text and could have led to a misunderstanding of typical social standards during the time.
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