The Untold Story of the Native Woman

I was extremely fascinated by the only strong female character that is mentioned maybe just two times in Joseph Conrad’s entire novel Heart of Darkness.

He first depicts her from a crowd of native people, which was code in my mind that she is important and I immediately began trying to put together a story for her. After setting the scene he introduces her “along the lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman.” Conrad seldom spoke of woman and often it was derogatory and the main character somehow saw this woman in a more positive light. It is as if he welcomes us to make up her role as the story moves along.

I was immediately drawn to this woman, I wanted to know who she was and what her part in the story was, but other than physical descriptions Conrad leads us the readers to write his own novel or in other words to have our own reader-response criticism.  

Reader-response criticism is simply stated in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism as, “reading is really a process of combining what is physically in print with what you make up in your mind….texts never tell you absolutely everything, and when the author doesn’t give you a particular detail, you may supply it yourself.”

I initially thought that this woman was the infamous Mr. Kurtz’s “intended;” however, as we come to understand that he left a grieving fiancé at home. Although I was wrong about the mysterious native woman being his intended I still believe that they had a romantic relationship. It is written that she was more than upset at Mr. Kurtz sickly departure from the African Congo. How empowering is it that we get to be somewhat of a writer in such an amazing novel!

Then also from this same empowered woman that somehow empowers our own thinking and mental writing we find paradox in who she is. “She walked with measured steps.. treading the earth proudly… she carried her head high” she seems to have it all together and to be perfectly balanced. However, in the very next paragraph she seems to be falling apart, “Her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow.” His description leaves us with the impression that such a strong and controlled woman has no control at all, and that is the wonder of deconstruction. This native woman becomes so much more alive and real to us through the irony that she is both carrying her head high but fiercely sorrowful. Conrad uses deconstruction to also allow us to be the author alongside him, and for me it is proof of her love for Conrad.

You can also see more criticism for nameless native woman here. 

My sister and I on a little trip to Mexico; trying to accessorize like the native woman. 

"her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow , a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms , gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step."