Conrad and Masculinity

4
Gender and the Disciplined Body:
Nostromo
In Nostromo Conrad deploys stereotypes of gender and race, which is
not to say that he merely reproduces such stereotypes, since I shall
argue that they form part of the novel’s critique of false consciousness,
and its associated deconstruction of certain illusions of masculinity.
These stereotypes involve both body and character, and imply their
correspondence. It is a novel in which heroic male moustaches are
much in evidence. Gould and Nostromo are characters that draw
upon two stereotyped versions of normative masculinity, Anglo-
Saxon and Latin. Gould is the ideal English gentleman colonial
administrator: resolute, dignified, restrained, inscrutable, knowledgeable
in the ways of his adopted country yet indelibly English (N,
47–8). This crucial Englishness, which initially seems to hold him
apart from what is seen as the mad farce of South American politics, is
presented as a bodily characteristic:
Born in the country [Sulaco] ... spare and tall, with a flaming moustache,
a neat chin, clear blue eyes, auburn hair, and a thin, fresh,
red face, Charles Gould looked like a new arrival ... He looked more
English than ... anybody out of the hunting-field pictures in the
numbers of Punch.
(46–7)
Gould even conforms to the ‘mad dogs and Englishman’ cliché, a fact
recognized and gently mocked by Don José Avellanos: ‘Carlos, my
friend, you have ridden from San Tomé in the heat of the day. Always
the true English activity. No? What?’ (51). Nostromo is the ideal Latin
heroic male adventurer of the people: strong, brave, resourceful, admired
and vain, a casual and confident wooer, with his ‘unapproachable
94