Role of Gender in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad For the most part, people who read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad may think of the short story as strictly a story of exploration and racial discrimination. But for Johanna Smith, who wrote “‘Too Beautiful Quite’: Ideologies of Gender and Empire in the Heart of Darkness,” it’s much more than that. Johanna Smith, Wallace Watson, and Rita A. Bergenholtz agree that throughout Heart of Darkness there are tones of gender bias, but how these three different authors perceive and interpret these gender tones is to some extent different. Smith points out that although Heart of Darkness is a particularly masculine narrative, femininity and gender play a deeper role in the story. Smith writes that "Marlow's narrative aims to 'colonize' and 'pacify' both savage darkness and women" (Smith 189). Furthermore, Smith states, “By silencing the native washerwoman and symbolizing the equally silent wild woman and the company women, Marlow reconstructs his experience of the darkness they represent. The two European women speaking the story, Marlow's aunt and Kurtz's Destiny, serve a similar function. By limiting unsatisfactory feminine versions of imperialist ideology to them, Marlow is able to create his own masculine version to keep the darkness at bay” (Smith 190). For Marlow, his story is never meant to be read or heard by a woman. Marlow believes that his story is far too masculine for women and that, as a result, the story is beyond them. To understand Smith's essay, Smith believes it is important to be aware of his use of the word ideology. For her, the word has two different meanings "to denote not only a conscious system of meaning, e...... middle of paper ...... Darkness'" and Wallace Watson's "Andrew Michael Roberts". Conrad and Masculinity” are all very compelling essays that suggest that there is in fact a gender theme running throughout Heart of Darkness. Smith, Watson, and Bergenholtz give Marlow and Conrad a different voice that some readers might miss. Works Cited Belsey, Catherine. Critical practice. London: Methuen, 1980. Bergenholtz, Rita. “Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.” The Explainer. 53.2 (1995):102. Print.Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Ed Ross Murfin. 3rd ed. Boston, New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. 3-94. Smith, Johanna. “Too beautiful altogether”: ideologies of gender and empire in the heart of darkness. Ed. Ross Murfin. 3rd ed. Boston, NY: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. 189-203. Watson, Wallace. “Andrew Michael Roberts. Conrad and masculinity. Coradiane. 39.1 (2007):87. Print.