Tracing the Aesthetic Principle in Conrad’s Novels

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Tracing the Aesthetic Principle in Conrad’s Novels

Yael Levin

tracing the aesthetic principle in conrad’s novelsCopyright © Yael Levin, 2008.

All rights reserved.

First published in 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.

Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world.

Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.

ISBN-13: 978-0-230-60986-0ISBN-10: 0-230-60986-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.

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First edition: January 2009

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Printed in the United States of America.

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To Aryeh and Aliza

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It is otherwise with the artist.

—Joseph Conrad, NN

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Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Abbreviations xii

1 Introduction 1

2 Seeing Otherwise: From Almayer’s Folly to Lord Jim 23

3 A Spectral Temporality: The History of Nostromo as Perpetual Return 53

4 Signifying Absences in Under Western Eyes 73

5 The Arrow of Gold: An Exercise in Procuring Absence 105

6 To End with Suspense 139

7 Conclusion 169

Notes 175

References 191

Index 199

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Acknowledgments

My sincerest thanks and gratitude to Professor Robert Hampson whose comments, observations, and suggestions greatly benefited this study. I feel honored to have had the chance to work with such an enviably knowledgeable and insightful Conrad scholar. A further debt is due to Professor Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, a dear mentor and friend who not only introduced me to my first Conrad novel, Under Western Eyes, but also indulged me in my early absent-present obsessions.

I would like to thank my parents, Aryeh and Aliza, two truly inspir-ing role models. I am and forever will be grateful for their unwavering encouragement and support. I also wish to express my gratitude to my husband, Ruben, for his invaluable input and love.

I would like to thank the editors of the Conradian, Conradiana, and Partial Answers for their kind permission to reprint parts of the papers published in their journals.

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Abbreviations

Conrad’s Works

AF Almayer’s Folly

AG The Arrow of Gold

HD Heart of Darkness

LJ Lord Jim

OI An Outcast of the Islands

N Nostromo

NN The Nigger of the “Narcissus”

NLL Notes on Life and Letters

PR A Personal Record

ASS A Set of Six

SL The Shadow-Line

S Suspense

TH Tales of Hearsay

TU Tales of Unrest

TLS ‘Twixt Land and Sea

UWE Under Western Eyes

V Victory

All page references to Conrad’s works refer to the Dent editions (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1945–55).

The author’s ellipses appear in brackets. An ellipsis without brack-ets appears in Conrad’s text.

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C h a p t e r 1

4Introduction

All through the languid stillness of that night he fought with the impalpable; he fought with the shadows, with the darkness, with the silence. He fought without a sound, striking futile blows, dashing from side to side; obstinate, hopeless, and always beaten back; like a man bewitched within the invisible sweep of a magic circle.

—OI, 157

Willems’s solitude is absolute, but he does not battle alone. Whether it is Almayer, Willems, Jim, Decoud, Heyst, Razumov, or any one of Conrad’s protagonists, man’s struggle with the forces of the impalpa-ble recurs as this thematic preoccupation obsessively haunts the Con-rad canon. The “invisible sweep of a magic circle” thus becomes one of the determining locales in the psychic topography of the Conradian text. Within the confines of this enchanting circle, the human senses are rendered obsolete; one cannot hear, see, or touch the enduring enemy. This is a metaphysical battle, a war waged against shadow, idea, thought, or illusion. At the same time, the threat of the impal-pable, the unnamable, and the invisible—be it vague or evanescent—is real; caught in the “magic circle,” man must prevail or perish. The underlying lack that comes of an absolute negation of sound, light, sight, and touch metamorphoses into a living, menacing presence that indubitably vanquishes he who dares challenge it.

In 1948, F. R. Leavis famously reflected that, for Conrad, it is “the vague and unrealizable” that “is the profoundly and tremendously sig-nificant” (199). Leavis’s words suggest that the struggles of Conrad’s

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