How does Joseph Conrad use minor characters in order to develop themes in his novella Heart of Darkness?

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Heart of Darkness, a novella published in 1902 by Polish-born writer Joseph Conrad, is mainly a travel account of the main protagonists’, Charlie Marlow, voyage through the Congo as he dictates it to a group of men aboard an anchored ship in the Thames River. The novella is written as a story within a story, or as a frame narrative, and Conrad often uses minor characters in order to develop themes within the book. Although most of Heart of Darkness takes place in an all-male environment, whether aboard a ship or a work site, one recurring theme in the book is the main protagonists’ perspective of women, which is oftentimes condescending and portraying women in a negative light and as the inferior sex. Conrad often uses female characters, all of whom are minor, to develop this theme, and some of the characters he uses are Marlow’s aunt and Kurtz’s Intended. One minor character Conrad uses to develop the theme of women as the inferior sex is Marlow’s aunt. It was Marlow’s aunt that he contacted when in need of a job, and it was she that also acquired him the job that would eventually lead him to travel to the Congo. Although she is of great help to him, Marlow still makes degrading comments towards his aunt, when he says “Then — would you believe it — I tried the women. I, Charlie Marlow, set the women to work — to get a job! Heavens!”. He says this because he cannot believe that he had to stoop so low as to ask his aunt for a job, that he was so desperate to travel that he asked a woman for financial assistance. These comments reveal Marlow’s attitude towards women – that he thinks of them as the lower sex and that men are the ones with the power and finances. In addition, Marlow’s aunt is portrayed as a very naïve and ignorant woman, for she is blind to the negative consequences of imperialism and is convinced that Europe’s colonization of Africa is a beneficent

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