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Conrad and Masculinity

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4<br />

Gender <strong>and</strong> the Disciplined Body:<br />

Nostromo<br />

In Nostromo <strong>Conrad</strong> deploys stereotypes of gender <strong>and</strong> race, which is<br />

not to say that he merely reproduces such stereotypes, since I shall<br />

argue that they form part of the novel’s critique of false consciousness,<br />

<strong>and</strong> its associated deconstruction of certain illusions of masculinity.<br />

These stereotypes involve both body <strong>and</strong> character, <strong>and</strong> imply their<br />

correspondence. It is a novel in which heroic male moustaches are<br />

much in evidence. Gould <strong>and</strong> Nostromo are characters that draw<br />

upon two stereotyped versions of normative masculinity, Anglo-<br />

Saxon <strong>and</strong> Latin. Gould is the ideal English gentleman colonial<br />

administrator: resolute, dignified, restrained, inscrutable, knowledgeable<br />

in the ways of his adopted country yet indelibly English (N,<br />

47–8). This crucial Englishness, which initially seems to hold him<br />

apart from what is seen as the mad farce of South American politics, is<br />

presented as a bodily characteristic:<br />

Born in the country [Sulaco] ... spare <strong>and</strong> tall, with a flaming moustache,<br />

a neat chin, clear blue eyes, auburn hair, <strong>and</strong> a thin, fresh,<br />

red face, Charles Gould looked like a new arrival ... He looked more<br />

English than ... anybody out of the hunting-field pictures in the<br />

numbers of Punch.<br />

(46–7)<br />

Gould even conforms to the ‘mad dogs <strong>and</strong> Englishman’ cliché, a fact<br />

recognized <strong>and</strong> gently mocked by Don José Avellanos: ‘Carlos, my<br />

friend, you have ridden from San Tomé in the heat of the day. Always<br />

the true English activity. No? What?’ (51). Nostromo is the ideal Latin<br />

heroic male adventurer of the people: strong, brave, resourceful, admired<br />

<strong>and</strong> vain, a casual <strong>and</strong> confident wooer, with his ‘unapproachable<br />

94

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