Heart of Darkness
A striking contrast in the story "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad is the differences between the two women that Kurtz is involved with. His intended, a white woman who waits faithfully for him in Europe, and his fiery African mistress help to reinforce the themes and ideas in the story.
The two main female characters can be seen as symbols of the contrast between light and darkness. Kurtz's mistress is "savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent." There is something "ominous and stately in her deliberate progress." She embodies the wild, untamed land of Africa. She…
