".
Marlow expresses that the oppressed people have their own world, unique and glamorous. If the women themselves were to set up their delicate world, it would inevitably crumble. Their lives would be in ruins, unprotected and exposed to the cruel nature of society. Men respect the colonial nature of women and therefore formulate lies and boundaries to guard them.
At the Company's office Marlow encountered two women, content with knitting, outside the waiting room to the inner office. These women occupy a transitional space in the headquarters; they are outside the waiting room and the inner office, yet inside the Company. They are some of the last faces the young men will see before leaving for Africa (McIntire, 10). "Often far away there I thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness (25)." The women represent a barrier between Europe and Africa, a divine world and the horror. The conquerors must pass through the guards, living in their formulated fragile world, to reach the darkness. The women lack the ability to view this horror due to the imposed suppression from cultural and ideological boundaries.
Kurtz's painting of a blindfolded woman depicts the distance between women and the truth precisely as Marlow views the relationship. "Then I noticed a small sketch in oils, on a panel, representing a woman, draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch (40)." The woman is blind from the truth, having only the "light" or men to guide her. The conquerors create the oppressed women's world.
The woman in the picture is "draped and blindfolded." She is hidden from the horror, the harshness of reality. Women must be protected, for they are extremely delicate, to see such truth would bring their world to tragic ruins. In order to shield women from such destruction men act as their "lighted torch." The conquerors control the knowledge of women. For they cover up truths with lies and restrain female boundaries.
