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Heart of Darkness,
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W
That's a very interesting observation, because in the introduction of the edition I have (Penguin, 2000), there is a compelling summary of readings of the book according to the gender divide. Such interpretations say that it is a text about women being shut out of male society - about men excluding women from their storytelling and their true experience of the world. In the opening pages Marlow says something about women being divorced from reality, living in lush, romantic fantasies. And after all, his aunt is a typical deluded woman for not seeing the truth about the Congo, while in the end he can't bring himself to tell the truth to the Intended. In between the two he witnesses the powerful, mysterious, gorgeous African woman at the centre of Kurtz's congregation.
The question is: is it this depiction of women in the novel which (consciously or unconsciously) bothers female readers, or is there something inherently masculine in the style of the text itself, which excludes and bores them?
The question is: is it this depiction of women in the novel which (consciously or unconsciously) bothers female readers, or is there something inherently masculine in the style of the text itself, which excludes and bores them?
Julian Hall
Sometimes it is more of a girl book than a guy book and sometimes guys like the book more than girls
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