Heart of Darkness | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 29 pages of analysis & critique of Heart of Darkness.

Heart of Darkness | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 29 pages of analysis & critique of Heart of Darkness.
This section contains 7,611 words
(approx. 26 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Rita Bode

SOURCE: Bode, Rita. “‘They … Should Be Out of It’: The Women of Heart of Darkness.Conradiana: A Journal of Joseph Conrad Studies 26, no. 1 (1994): 20-34.

In the following essay, Bode asserts that “a close focus on the females in Heart of Darkness suggests that the extent and nature of their power are formidable.”

Conrad's women in Heart of Darkness have bewildered critical commentators as much, perhaps, as his Congo experience bedevils Marlow. Though Conrad's text seems to proffer an invitation to read the work as a kind of male ritual, a moral and sexual initiation into “manhood,” the wide range of critical approaches has not neglected the work's female figures. Recent feminist studies have focused on the women characters to explore Conrad's methods and ideology. Valerie M. Sedlak, for instance, looks at Marlow's “search for interpretation,” which elucidates the novella's patterns of “fictive discourse,” and Johanna M. Smith assesses...

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This section contains 7,611 words
(approx. 26 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Rita Bode
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Critical Essay by Rita Bode from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.