The Intended

In The Heart of Darkness- Joseph COnrad

A quick recap of this gripping novella-
Our boy Marlow embarks on a mission to
'civilize' Africa.

He travels up the river Congo, to find

Kurtz(and himself as we later realize) who
has succumbed to the inner darkness of his
heart.

Kurtz tries to make a run for it but is too

weak and too out of his senses, and dies a
quiet death in the dingy.

Marlow returns to England, falls ill, wanders

around like a madman for a bit.

Makes up his mind to meet the Intended for

some much needed closure, and ultimately
ends up lying about something quite crucial.
 In order to talk about the
Intended, one ought to mention
the few other women in the novel
● Marlow's aunt (who got him the
job)
● Kurtz’s African mistress (the
dark and savage beauty)
● Kurtz’s Intended (his fair and
lovely beauty)
● Two women spinning wool
(could be symbolically seen as
the two Fates)
Since the Heart of Darkness is one of
those novels which declare the arrival of
Modernism, it became a subject to the
study of different branches of literary
theory such as feminism, colonialism and
post-colonialism, reader-response
criticism, archetypal criticism,
deconstruction, new historicism and what
not.
In a feminist reading of the novel, it
becomes glaringly apparent, the male
characters are much more powerful than
the female ones. Even the description of
the female characters is limited and they
are seen through a certain lens.
 The woman who first appears in the novel
is Marlow’s aunt. She appears at a moment
of crisis: Marlow had cherished the idea of
going to Congo for a job, but he fails to get
it on his own accord; when all his attempts
fail, his aunt’s influence solves the problem.
In Marlow’s words “I tried the women. I
Charlie Marlow set the women to work – to
get a job.” (Conrad 29)
But the portrait of her character reeks of
irony : “she is ‘a dear enthusiastic soul’
living in her own world. She is ‘ready to
do anything’ for Marlow, in the name of
a ‘noble cause’ (Conrad 33), that is
enlightening the natives of the Belgian
Congo. According to her, a worker in a
colonial enterprise is something ‘like an
emissary of light, something like a lower
sort of apostle’.
Ruth L. Nadelhaft writes, "His own
aunt, Marlow asserts, represents
legions of women who must be
protected from the reality of the
'confounded fact' which might destroy
their beautiful world of unreality"
But does Marlow ever try to bring
them in touch with reality? He feels he
ought to preserve this little bubble
encompassing them, for women are
fragile creatures and should be kept in
safety away from the harsh truths of
life, and more importantly the harsh
horrors of the colonial enterprise.
 Here the reader, specially the female reader might wonder if this is the character
of Marlow speaking or is Conrad inherently misogynistic. In light of this question,
one ought to keep in mind the historical and contextual background of not only the
author but also the text.

Conrads view IS quite sexist (when read by us contemporary readers), however

his attitude towards women is typically Victorian -
“..women must be beautiful, sophisticated, chaste, tender, dignified ‘angel in the
house’; but must be confined to illusion, never trying to grasp the reality and self
realization (Ray)

Feminist critics such as Gabrielle McIntyre and Nina Pelikan Straus,

offer astute readings of the novella. McIntire refers to the "women's
near invisibility" in the novella (257), while Straus writes, "No doubt
that the artistic conventions of Heart of Darkness are brutally sexist"
Talking about being confined to an illusion, one comes to the Intended.
Kurtz refers to his fiancée as his
“Intended,” and Marlow adopts this
terminology to talk about the
long-suffering woman who has waited
years for Kurtz to return to London.
Marlow first mentions Kurtz’s
Intended two-thirds of the way into
his story, during a digression in which
he claims that women belong in a
separate reality, and that men “must
help them to stay in that beautiful
world of their own.”
‘My Beloved, my ivory,
my station, my river, my
—’ ( Kurtz)
Kurtz’s entitled comment shows that he
believes everything is rightfully his,
effectively showing the true arrogance
of his character. Another point to be
noted from this quote is how K groups
his wife along with his material
possessions like his station and ivory.
He never calls her by her actual name,
instead referring to her as his
‘Intended’. I feel this not only
dehumanises her but also strips her of
her independence.

Kurtz’s African Mistress
In striking comparison to the Intended, Marlow encounters the
native black woman, Kurtz’s consort. In Marlow’s words “She
was savage and superb wild-eyed and magnificent [. . .] She
stood
looking at us without a stir, and like the wilderness itself, with
an air of
brooding over an inscrutable purpose. (Conrad 87)
The two main female characters can be seen as symbols of
the contrast between light and darkness.
Kurtz’s mistress and his Intended also help us gain insight
into his decline into madness. When Marlow meets him he
no longer cares for the principles of society, and is
cheating on his fiancé with the African woman. The
African woman represents how Kurtz has formed an
alliance with the natives.
However a similarity exists between them: both are tragic; both
have been fascinated by Kurtz; both
have been betrayed by him
In contrast to the Intended, the native woman is
filled with life and vitality. There seems to be a
silent battle between the two : on one side there is
the Intended and on other side is the native woman
and in between the two stands Kurtz.
And the result is obvious : the black woman wins
over Kurtz. The uncivilized defeats the civilized.
Europe succumbs to Africa.
As astutely pointed out by CB Cox-
If we compare this splendid savage with Kurtz’s
fiancée, his Intended, it may seem that we are
setting side by side dynamic energy with sterile
hypocrisy, life with death . . . She (the Intended)
has chosen for herself a graveyard, where she can
exist in comfort . . .; her condition symbolizes
that of western Europe. In contrast, the savage lives
out her sexual urges as naturally as if she
were a wild beast. (Cox 56)
When Marlow visits Kurtz’s Intended in London one year
after the man’s death, he finds a woman dressed in black "This fair hair, this pale visage, this
who “seemed as though she would remember and mourn
[Kurtz] forever.” (an ideal woman) pure brow, seemed surrounded by an
The Intended creates for herself a graveyard where she
ashy halo from which the dark eyes
hides behind her sorrow and her delusion regarding looked out at me. '' (Conrad 143)
Kurtz.

As in the African jungle, death permeates every corner of ''The room seemed to have grown
the European home. Marlow meets the Intended 'in a lofty
drawing-room' decorated with a 'marble fireplace' and darker, as if all the sad light of the
'grand piano', the fireplace is 'monumental' in its
'whiteness' and the piano 'gleams' in the corner 'like a
cloudy evening had taken refuge on
sombre and polished sarcophagus' her forehead'' (Creating a kind of
One ought to note this play of light and dark (ref to spotlight effect on the Intended)
chiaroscuro and modernist paintings ) and the very
apparent binaries Conrad creates in his novella.

He also weaves many many shadowy references into his

narrative creating a dark and brooding scene in his
reader’s imagination

“He lived then before me; he lived as much as he had

ever lived--a shadow insatiable of splendid appearances,
of frightful realities; a shadow darker than the shadow of
the night, and draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous
eloquence.”
When Marlow arrives on the Intended's doorstep,
he fantasizes that he feels keenly the ‘presence’
of Kurtz there with him as 'a shadow insatiable of
splendid appearances, of frightful realities; a
shadow darker than the shadow of the night, and
draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous
eloquence. The vision seemed to enter the house
with me' (p. 90).
He insists that he must stave off this dreadful
presence 'for the salvation of another soul' (p.
90)—the imperilled female soul of the Intended.
The domestic setting of his encounter with the
Intended only serves to intensify Marlow's sense
that he must preserve and protect the realm of
feminine fancy and delusion from the 'separate
sphere' of masculine knowledge, of sacred truth,
forged in the heart of darkness and in the bowels
of a ship.
Marlow's saviour complex epitomises the 'white
man's burden' of nineteenthcentury imperialist
ideology: protecting the innocent female from the
truth about the big bad world of commerce and
imperialism. The Intended clearly participates in and
perpetuates these masculine enterprises—her
parlour features a piano with ivory keys, one of the
two major commodities (alongside rubber) motivating
the Western rape of the Congo— but Marlow
conveniently maintains she is too fragile to learn the
truth behind the inanimate objects that adorn her
drawing-room. It is in the name of her 'salvation' that
Marlow lies to her about Kurtz's final words. In doing
so, Marlow occupies familiar ground.
Ironically, Marlow does not acknowledge that he has
his own idealized version of Kurtz, and that he may
have more in common with Kurtz’s Intended than he
realizes.
Whether or not Conrad himself intended to critique Western imperialism lies
outside the realm of this particular argument, but Marlow certainly epitomises
the good Victorian imperialist and patriarch in his treatment of the Intended,
just as Kurtz embodies the enlightened Victorian missionary gone bad in his
relations.
IN CONCLUSION
Much commentary exists concerning the Intended and Marlow's lie to her.
These commentaries tend to divide themselves into four general camps:
those who see Marlow as acting chivalrously by protecting the Intended's
sensibility, those who see the Intended as unworthy of hearing the truth or
unable to comprehend it, those who see Marlow maintaining the ideals of the
Intended's world by lying to her, and and those who see the Intended as in
fact embodying the "Horror" itself.
 Kurtz’s painting
“I rose. Then noticed a small sketch of oils, on a panel, representing a
woman, draped and blind-folded, carrying a lighted torch. The
background was sombre- almost black. The movement of the woman was
stately, and the effect of the torchlight on the face was sinister." (98)

The torch and the blind-fold come together to bring a piece of

symbolism to the painting. The blind-fold is a representation to the
"blind" Europeans not knowing what the horrors of colonialism
entail or what Africa is really like. The torch shows how the
Europeans are trying to bring a new chance and more opportunities
to Africa in their apparent ‘civilising’ mission.

The woman in the painting could also symbolize the Company,

which willingly blindfolds itself to the horrors it perpetuates in the
name of profit; it also recalls the Company's ineptitude and the
ways in which it "blindly" stumbles through Africa.
Works cited-
Bose, Brinda -Joseph Conrad :Heart of Darkness,
New York : Oxford University Press, 2001
Bloom, Harold. Joseph Conrad’ Heart of
Darkness, New York : Chelsea House
Publishers,1987
Cox, C.B. Joseph Conrad: The Modern
Imagination, 1974
Ray, Mohit K. Joseph Conrad’ Heart of Darkness,
The Atlantic Critical Studies
Moser, Thomas: Joseph Conrad: Achievement
and Decline, Cambridge, Massachusetts :
Havard University Press,1957
McIntire, Gabrielle, 'The Women Do Not Travel:
Gender, Difference, and Incommensurability in
Conrad's Heart of Darkness,
Pelikan Strauss, Nina, 'The Exclusion of the
Intended from Secret Sharing in Conrad's Heart
of Darkness,' in Joseph Conrad's Heart of
Darkness: A Casebook, ed. by Gene M. Moore
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004)
Ellis, James. 'Kurtz's Voice: The Intended as
"The Horror"', English Literature in Transition
1880-1920, 19.2 (1976)