17.11.2012 Views

Conrad and Masculinity

Conrad and Masculinity

Conrad and Masculinity

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

148 <strong>Conrad</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Masculinity</strong><br />

initially to search for Ziemianitch to aid Haldin’s escape) being<br />

revealed. Somewhat later, as the oppression of his lonely situation<br />

bears in on him, he becomes equally afraid of not being understood:<br />

Yet he could not defend himself from fancying that Councillor<br />

Mikulin was, perhaps, the only man in the world able to underst<strong>and</strong><br />

his conduct. To be understood appeared extremely<br />

fascinating.<br />

(297)<br />

At the same time he realizes the impossibility of underst<strong>and</strong>ing. This<br />

is partly a political point, in that it is the context of suspicion <strong>and</strong><br />

political oppression that makes attempts at honest disclosure both<br />

futile <strong>and</strong> dangerous. However, ultimately it is also a psychological<br />

<strong>and</strong> even an existential point:<br />

The idea of going back <strong>and</strong>, as he termed it to himself, confessing to<br />

Councillor Mikulin flashed through his mind.<br />

Go back! What for? Confess! To what? ‘I have been speaking to<br />

him with the greatest openness,’ he said to himself with perfect<br />

truth. ‘What else could I tell him? That I have undertaken to carry a<br />

message to that brute Ziemianitch? Establish a false complicity <strong>and</strong><br />

destroy what chance of safety I have won for nothing—what folly!’<br />

(297)<br />

The existential implication here is that the truth of the self can never<br />

be ultimately revealed. Razumov acted first to help Haldin <strong>and</strong> then to<br />

betray him. Behind these actions is no ultimate truth of Razumov’s<br />

identity but rather a contingent <strong>and</strong> circumstantial confusion. Since<br />

Natalia Haldin, Sophia Antonovna <strong>and</strong> Tekla are, in their various<br />

ways, presented as relatively admirable characters with firm convictions<br />

<strong>and</strong> resolute in their behaviour, <strong>Conrad</strong>’s destabilizing of the self<br />

bears most on the masculine self. It is the masculine self which both<br />

needs <strong>and</strong> fears to confess, which both wants to be understood <strong>and</strong> yet<br />

lacks the substance necessary for final underst<strong>and</strong>ing. The political<br />

aspects have already been pointed out to Razumov by Mikulin, who<br />

comments that ‘abstention, reserve, in certain situations, come very<br />

near to political crime’ (294). This observation shows the insufficiency<br />

of the language-teacher’s stereotypically ‘English’ code of masculinity<br />

as reserve <strong>and</strong> restraint. Under certain forms of political oppression,<br />

one must confess, <strong>and</strong> one cannot confess to innocence, only to guilt.

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!