Heart Of Darkness By Joseph Conrad Research Paper

Joseph Conrad, a social conscious writer, had no choice but to side with the typical view of women in the Victorian Era. Each woman was sheltered from many opportunities, but still was supposed to be treated with respect. Many men sheltered these women because they felt as if women couldn’t simply handle the harsh reality of the world. Even though women slaved at home with their very important duties including handling finances, taking care of children, household work, taking care of servants, and even helping their husbands with work if asked to, they were viewed as nothing more than an “overly emotional and mindless creatures ruled by their sexuality (Reagin). By law, women were sworn property of men when married. Every belonging that they own soon becomes the husband’s; most of their existence was erased. The only “crowning achievement” in a woman’s life was motherhood (Reagin). Men had the right to everything, while women didn’t even have the right to their own body.
Instead of saying Kurtz’s true words “the horror, the horror.” Marlow states that “The last word he pronounced was your name.” (149). Marlow keeps the secret of Kurtz’s state of mind at death, his ‘god’ like figure to the natives, and the tragedies of the Congo hidden from the Intended in hopes to keep her world peaceful. Even though, within the first half of the book Marlow mentions that he despises lying. As Marlow believes “the women are out of it, should be out of it. We must help them stay in that beautiful world of their own” (108). If he were to expose the truth to the Intendant, her grieving in the book would be far worst with the harsh images of the Congo haunting her because of the major sheltering of each