Race, Gender, and Colonialism

This text brought out a lot of hidden details that i didn't find in The Heart of Darkness. This essay spoke about many oppositions that confront each other in this story. Some distictions that are identified are truth and lies, men and women, civilization and savagery, and self and other. Of these i found that self and other were the more drastic. This story is essence is a story of finding one's self. In all of us there is an evil that stays suppressed. If that side stays supressed then it is unknown. It is that unknown part of one's self that this text is trying to confront. Who are you? Marlow finds who he is through finding Kurtz. Kurtz is a man, but symbolically he's Marlow's unknown side. Everything Marlow thought that he would never be is Kurtz. Once he discovers how evil and corupt Kurtz is Marlow changes. It's that discovery between self and other that Marlow is able to save who he is as a civilized and caring human being. In this essay that was the only opposition that truly remained in tack. The other oppositions began to blur on Marlow. In the beginning of the story Marlow states that he hates to lie, but through out his tale he lies a total of three times. The last lie he tells to Kurtz's fiance is told out of symapthy to her. So are lies are evil as he thought? Then there is the opposition of men verses women. In the beginning Marlow views women in a very "femine" way. He sees women as fragil and delicate, while men are strong and adventurous. He also states that women should just stay in their own world, there I think he meant their world of inocence. Yet, in the jungle Marlow met a woman who was powerful and strong, while also being beautiful. This time in the jungle made the lines that had previously defines men and women for him blurr. Lastly, his ideas of civilization and savagery blurr by the time he leaves the jungle. In the beginning of his tale Marlow hears the savages scream, make noise, and clatter about. Each word he used to describe their noises were very derogatory. Yet, after he spent much time in the jungle, in their land, he began to understand the way of their society. It made him see that what's savage to one society may be considered civil in another. Who can define what savage and civil are? This essay really made is clear to me that this adventure was Marlow finding who he was and what the world around him was like.