Assignment task:
Consider the following selected passage from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness:
The men said 'My dear fellow,' and did nothing. Then-would you believe it?-I tried the women. I, Charlie Marlow, set the women to work-to get a job. Heavens! Well, you see, the notion drove me. I had an aunt, a dear enthusiastic soul. She wrote: 'It will be delightful. I am ready to do anything, anything for you. It is a glorious idea. I know the wife of a very high personage in the Administration, and also a man who has lots of influence with,' etc. She was determined to make no end of fuss to get me appointed skipper of a river steamboat, if such was my fancy.
What are the benefits of a psychoanalytic reading of the passage? Of a feminist reading? What are the disadvantages of a psychoanalytic reading? Of a feminist reading?