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Heart of Darkness Women and Femininity Quotes Page 3
Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
"She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul." (3.14)
The warrior woman reflects many of the traits of the wilderness – its savagery, wildness, magnificence, and ominousness. Everyone falls back in respect for her and it seems as if the wilderness itself looks and is reflected back by her image. She is, in effect, the soul of the wilderness.
"Her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow and of dumb pain mingled with the fear of some struggling, half-shaped resolve. She stood looking at us without a stir, and like the wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose." (3.15)
Like the wilderness, this warrior woman is "fierce" but also "dumb" or silent. Her purpose is uncertain and only "half-shaped," as if the wilderness has not yet decided what to do about its invaders. Read in another light, however, this "wild sorrow" and "dumb pain" may have something to do with her affection for Kurtz and her worry over him now that the white men have arrived.
"Suddenly she opened her bared arms and threw them up rigid above her head, as though in an uncontrollable desire to touch the sky, and at the same time the swift shadows darted out on the earth, swept around on the river, gathering the steamer into a shadowy embrace. A formidable silence hung over the scene." (3.15)
Here, the warrior woman is an embodiment of lust, an "uncontrollable desire." Her movements also command the native Africans, who dart out seemingly at her command to surround the threatening steamboat. Again, she seems like an extension of the wilderness. But, read in another light, the woman is steeped in sexual imagery. Notice words like "desire" and "embrace." Conrad depicts her sexuality as dangerous as well as seductive.
