Conrad and Masculinity

Masculinity, ‘Woman’ and Truth 147
masculinity are treated ironically almost as a byproduct of his exploration
of existential uncertainty. Ideas of cultural difference come
into play as part of this ironization, as when Haldin calls Razumov ‘a
regular Englishman’ (22) because of his brevity of speech and seeming
coolness (22), or when the language-teacher talks of Natalia’s ‘characteristically
Russian exploit in self-suppression’ (375) just at the
moment when his own (characteristically English?) self-suppression is
most in evidence. (He is evidently in love with Natalia, yet comments
that ‘I gathered this success to my breast’ (373) when he learns of
Natalia’s decision to return to Russia, which means that he will never
see her again.)
The most crucial difference between ‘Heart of Darkness’ and Under
Western Eyes is perhaps that what is exchanged between men in Under
Western Eyes is less knowledge (even, as in ‘Heart of Darkness’, secret
and enigmatic knowledge) than ignorance and misunderstanding.
This offers a more troubled and uncertain view of the male homosocial
economy, and implicates both author and reader in that
uncertainty. I want to focus particularly on the relationship of
speaker to listener (or writer to reader), and on narratological chains
whereby the listener/reader of one narrating relationship also serves
as the speaker/writer for another narrating relationship, and so on.
These chains are of particular interest in the study of masculinity
within narrative fiction. They seem to project constructions of
masculinity outside the text, to implicate implied author and implied
reader (and perhaps even actual readers) in a series of exchanges and
transferences of desire. Particular modes of the communicative act
can be passed along these chains, and these modes carry with them
aspects of masculinity. In the case of Under Western Eyes the mode of
communication concerned is almost a mode of non-communication,
in that misinterpretation is always involved. Whereas in ‘Heart of
Darkness’ an enigmatic, veiled knowledge is passed among men, the
epistemological structure of Under Western Eyes involves a series of
confessions which are dogged by the failure to understand, or by
incorrect understanding.
Aspects of the narrative chain are thematized in the novel.
Immediately after deciding to give Haldin up to the authorities,
Razumov says to himself, ‘I want to be understood’ (39), and in his
interview with Mikulin, Razumov seizes on the word ‘misunderstood’
in an attempt to avoid the word ‘mistrusted’, and expresses the fear of
having been misunderstood by the authorities (87). In fact he is afraid
of being understood, that is to say, of his ambivalence (which led him