Heart of Darkness Literary Critiscm

Joseph Conrad, though incredibly esteemed, is often found to be the victim of scathing, literary, critiques. Many of the literary criticisms aimed at Conrad’s novels openly accuse him of being a multitude of quite nasty things—one of which being antifeminist. Having only read Heart of Darkness, I cannot vouch for all of his other works, but I will admit that on an aesthetic level the story (particularly the main character Marlow) seems to view women with an air of disdain. However, that is the lovely thing about novels—a reader is never supposed to observe the surface alone, but must delve into all the hidden meanings beneath. While Marlow does in fact describe the few women he meets in a quite belittling manner, I do not believe that Joseph Conrad harbors the same bitter contempt. One criticism that appeared throughout many of the ‘Conrad is a raging antifeminist!’ articles that I read was the fact that he never names any of the women in Heart of Darkness, which many of these critics see as Conrad dehumanizing them. However, other than Marlow, Kurtz, and Captain Freslevan, Conrad never gives a name to any of the other characters—men included! I suppose one can then argue that the fact that there are no women in leading roles is sexist, but this is not a story about women. It is a story told by a sexist narrator about his journey to find a man in Africa while travelling with an all-male crew. Of course there are no major female characters. Wait? Did you say sexist narrator? What?! Well, yes. Marlow holds quite a blatant aversion to the female gender. In fact, it is his depiction of women that leads many readers to see the novel as sexist. The reader must take into account that though Conrad wrote the book, Charles Marlow is the one telling the story. Writer Rita Bergenholtz agrees, pointing out in her critique of Heart of Darkness that “many critics have simply ignore[d] the fact that it is Marlow rather than Conrad who argues that women should be kept

Cited: Bergenholtz, Rita A., The Explicator (Washington), Winter 1995, Vol. 53, Iss. 2, pg. 102 Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness: A Norfon Critical Edition. 1902. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 1988. Karl, Frederick R. "Introduction to the Danse Macabre: Conrad 's Heart of Darkness." Heart of Darkness: A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism. Ed. Ross C. Murfin. New York: St. Martin 's Press, 1989. 123-38.