Whom Do We Blame?

Girls get a pretty bad rap in most societies. "You throw like a girl!" "Boys are stronger (smarter, more inclined to understand money, maps, you name it), it's science!" and similar phrases plague young girls' minds and raise them to believe that by natural, indisputable law, boys are generally better at everything except being nice and baking (I don't think I'm exaggerating). So who is to blame? All men? Nope! Women, then? I don't think that's fair. How did we get to this place? Literature provides a concrete and fascinating platform from which we can analyze the world's interpretation of what it means to be female. 

Here's a picture of me (far left) with my favorite female (my mother) and my favorite feminist (far right, my father) in Moscow, Russia after my 18 month church service in the Ural Mountains and Siberia. 

So in my last post about Heart of Darkness, I explored the ways in which we, as readers may be just as responsible for misconceptions about what it means to be "female" as Joseph Conrad, who penned the novel himself and has been highly criticized for the way in which females are portrayed. After reading a lot more about feminist literary criticism (see here for a great essay about it), Marxism, Freudism, and reader response theories, I'm looking at Heart of Darkness through a whole different lens... or a couple of lenses all at once, I guess.

Steven J. Venturino's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism provides thorough and accessible explanations for different literary criticism theories, and I will be referencing the kindle version (available here on Amazon) often in this post. As defined by Venturino, feminist literary criticism seeks to expose the effects of patriarchy (or a world controlled by men) and to advance equal opportunities for women (Loc 3178). Basically, feminist criticism assumes that all literary texts come from authors and historical settings that oppress women, regardless of the the author's gender or upbringing. Furthermore, a feminist critic's job is to expose the patriarchal nature of the world to the light of reality, and then to undo an oppressive view of women that has been drilled into our minds since birth, unbeknownst to us. (After all, "political and social forces can succeed best when they don't look like force at all" (Loc 3178). That's the genius of patriarchal society, it appears to be normal and natural!) 

In Conrad's Heart of Darkness, there are three female characters who basically serve to embody the traits that aren't already taken by the main characters, which are: naivety, innocence, ignorance, gentleness, and ignorant but hysteric emotion. Marlow's aunt gives ridiculous, naive advice that Marlow scoffs at, Kurtz' mistress' main character traits are her beauty, wealth, and frightening influence over Kurtz and the natives, and Kurtz' betrothed has basically no idea what's going on and is only soothed from her feminine fussiness when lied to. Critics blame Conrad for these two dimensional characters who paint female as simply the opposite of male, who power stands at the center of the universe. However, feminist theory as a whole, much like Marxism, blames society itself. 

Furthermore, according to reader response theory, it isn't Conrad or society who defines what these characters mean, but the reader. I've got a problem with that though; please tell me another way I could interpret Conrad's opinion on women based off of this novel? The characters are primarily male, and their attitudes toward women showcase annoyance--as if the women are meant to be puppetted by the men, and when they act out, they are a burden to everyone else. I used to think that Conrad might be signaling that men were a part of the problem for women's ignorance (because of Marlow's final thoughts about lying to Kurtz' betrothed), but when I look at it again, Conrad didn't put a single female character in the novel who consciously contributed something worthwhile to the plot. 

To a degree, I disagree with reader response theory that I share equal weight with the author for how his work is interpreted, because Conrad left me with little choice. For this misrepresentation of women specifically, I blame Conrad more than society as a whole or society during Conrad's life or anything else.

Facilitating Ignorance

The role of women in the home, in the work place, and in the media is constantly under fire. What do we expect of women? Misogyny says they should be condescended, chivalry says they should be protected, forward thinking says they should be respected.  In Joseph Conrad's short novel, Heart of Darkness, set in Africa when european countries were at the height of their imperialism, the two main female characters are incredibly naive to the reality of the darkness of the Congo. Many readers critically interpret the shallow thinking of these two women (protagonist Marlow's aunt and Ivory Lord Kurtz' 'betrothed') as a representation of Conrad's opinion on women. However, when Marlow ends his journey down the Congo River and returns to the ignorant betrothed of Kurtz, the reader notices irony in the fact that Marlow, who once criticized the naivety of his female aunt, actually contributes to the problem. Perhaps Conrad was trying to relate a different message?

Notice how this man effectively protects the female by lovingly closing her ears.

Marlow and Kurtz' betrothed meet for the first time as Marlow returns from his dark journey, where he met a deeply affected Kurtz. As she blubbers ignorantly about what an incredible man Kurtz was, the betrothed demands to know what Kurtz' last words were. Marlow relates:

"'I was on the point of crying at her, 'Don't you hear them?' The dusk was repeating them in a persistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seed to swell menacingly like the first whisper of a rising wind. 'The horror! The horror!' 

''His last word-- to live with,' she murmured. 'Don't you understand I loved him--I loved him--I loved him!' 

'I pulled myself together and spoke slowly. 'The last word he pronounced was--your name'" (Conrad, Loc 1409).

In attempts to protect Kurtz' betrothed from Kurtz' horrifying downfall, Marlow lies. His warm-fuzzier version of Kurtz' death adds fuel to the raging fire of the betrothed's naivety. This entire exchange highlights the irony and hypocrisy imbedded deep within countless social structures, especially the double standards of feminism.

This principle applies as we attempt to adapt to and understand the ever-changing social norms that prevail in society today.

As readers venture deeper into cyberspace, are we too, contributing to the narcissism, anonymity, and misconceptions associated with the internet? We encourage young girls to not base their self worth off of the pictures they see on the internet--"It's not real!"--but how long do we spend picking out the filter that is least noticeable but most flattering for our skin tone? We ridicule the loudest anonymous mouths on online forums, but how comfortable are we connecting our on and off line personas? I, for one, don't like the idea of my picture being connected to my Goodreads profile... why is that? We acknowledge that so much of what exists online is not completely true, but we contribute to it.