Conrad’s Heart of Darkness:Negotiating Space for the Women

My purpose in this article is to evaluate the roles played by the women characters in Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, and to show, contrary to the general view, that the women in the novel may and do serve to give more meaning to the text than they are supposed to do. I have taken into the purview of my critical analysis only three of the women-Marlow’s old aunt, Kurtz’s Intended, and his African Mistress. I have kept the two receptionists in the Company’s office in Brussels aside, primarily because the “Two women, one fat and the other slim, (who) sat on straw-bottomed chairs, knitting black wool” (Conrad 31) are mostly symbolic abstractions and have very little to add to the probable total meanings of the novel. The ‘compassionate secretary’ who made Marlow sign some documents in the Brussels office and who may possibly be a woman is also not considered on the same ground.