Question: What do the two knitting women at the Company's office in Brussels signify?
Ans. Two women at the Company's office in Brussels draw Marlow's attention when he goes there for his interview. One is young and slim, while the other is old and fat. The former is responsible for ushering and introducing visitors, while the latter merely observes them with seemingly indifferent old eyes. They may be compared to the Fates of classical mythology, the vengeful tricoteuses who sat knitting at the foot of the guillotine during the French Revolution, or the figures of Sin and Death who guard the gates of Hell in Milton's Paradise Lost.
The women are knitting “black wool as for a warm pall,” a detail that not only ties in with the prevailing imagery of darkness and death but also serves as a metaphor for the colonial expansion in which the Company is engaged. The knitting of black wool suggests the calculated exploitation of the Negro and his environment by the Company and its white agents.
On the other hand, what purpose does the wool serve? It is not sent to the natives in the Congo, for Marlow's first contact with them is with men whose loins are bound in “black rags.” Moreover, the whiteman has no use for wool in the Congo. Thus, the women's occupation becomes terrifyingly absurd.
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