Summary Of Jeremy Hawthorne's 'The Women Of Heart Of Darkness'

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In “The Women of Heart of Darkness”, the Jeremy Hawthorn argues that women figure in Heart of Darkness have a significant role in telling the association between gender division and imperialism. Women, especially the blindfold European women are the symbol of “weak, unhealthy, and corrupted” idealism. From Marlow’s perspective, he struggles between the choice of idealism and the choice of imperialism. To strength the thesis, Hawthorn compares the characters to reveal a deeper understanding of the text, analyzes an important imagery to shape the idealism he sees from European women, and applies intertextuality to illustrate how imperialism affects gender division in the text.
Hawthorn uses the comparison between women and Kurtz to bring out …show more content…

Catching the contrasts of black and white in the text as “all in black” “pale head” and “ashy halo” “dark eyes”, Hawthorn analyzes this figure as “living death” (407). The contrasting black and white imageries magnify the unalive features of the Intended or the middle-class European women who live in the beautiful world. Hawthorn has already explained how European women may symbolize idealism in the previous paragraph, creating a smooth transition to the characteristics of the idealism, which are exactly those of the Intended – “no energy, no living presence... weak, unhealthy, and corrupted” (407). Furthermore, Hawthorn continues the black and white imagery of two important women figures, the Intended and Kurtz’s African mistress. This time, the black and white imagery is the two women’s races. Their differences are not restricted on skin color, instead, Hawthorn exhibits several others, such as “where the Intended is static and passive, she [mistress] is active and forceful; where the Intended has the odor of death about her, she is the personification of life...” (408). Hawthorn believes that the contrast is important because it represents the clash of European idealism and African idealism, one is sickness and death, the other is wilderness and passion. Similarly, the contrast promotes the

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