lieshod Marlow’s Lie in Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness Essays

Marlow’s Lie in Heart of Darkness       Throughout the Heart of Darkness scenes, we get several glimpses of Marlow's particular attitudes towards women, that they are creatures that live "in a world of their own, and that there had never been anything like it, and never can be" (Longman, p. 2199). Women are able to create and see the beauty in life, something that is harder for men to do, roughened by hard work and misfortunes. Marlow also states, this time to his audience aboard the Nellie, "We must help them to stay in that beautiful world of their own, lest ours gets worse" (Longman, p. 2225). By this he means simply that part of what draws men to women is their capacity for beauty, to preserve and keep the "finer" things in life, which men can draw upon to enlighten them and give a sense of peace to their existence.    This sense of needing to preserve the beliefs and "beauty" of the Intended is why Marlow lies to her in the end. He abhors lies, his own beliefs that "there is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies..." (Longman, p. 2210) is what leads to the d...