Women

The women in Heart of Darkness all seem significant to me. I only remember four. The two at the beginning, one of whom "preceded [Marlow] into the waiting-room" (14). She could be important because she kind of marks the beginning of Marlow's journey. However, what I really noticed about Marlow's encounter with her was how he "only...just began to think of getting out of her way" when she "walked straight at [him]-still knitting with downcast eyes" (14). Marlow barely even thought of moving out of her way until she was about to walk into him. His actions made me feel like he thought he was above her. Then, at the very end of the book, we meet the "wild-eyed and magnificent" African woman (113). As Marlow and the crew leave Kurtz's station Marlow blows the steamboat's whistle to scare off the native onlookers, and "only the barbarous and superb woman [does] not so much as flinch, and [stretches] tragically her bare arms after [them] over the sombre and glittering river" (127). This woman seems powerful, steady amidst the terror felt by all around her. Finally, Marlow meets the lady that loved Kurtz. She seems to bring all the grief hat has happened in the novel together through a "feeling of infinite pity" (144). The scene with this lady repeats Kurtz's "very last words" in a "persistent whisper that seemed to swell menacingly" (145). She encompasses all the darkness Marlow has seen through her mourning of Kurtz. The women can be insignificant, powerful, or somber. Yet the men have power of them. Marlow treats the first lady in a way that makes her insignificant. The native is willful, but Kurtz and Marlow still leave her behind making her seem helpless. And Marlow has to save the last woman from overwhelming anguish that would have been "too dark" by lying about Kurtz's last words. Marlow alone lived with the knowledge of the "horror," at least until he told this story to his shipmates.