Conrad and Masculinity

Masculinity, ‘Woman’ and Truth 151
shadow to some of Conrad’s own idealizing tendencies. Madame de
S—, prime object of Peter Ivanovitch’s encomiums, is presented as
corrupt and grotesque. However, Natalia Haldin is presented in serious
terms as possessing some of those qualities which Ivanovitch implausibly
attributes to Madame de S— (‘a noble and peerless spirit’)
(129–30) and, more plausibly, to the Russian girl who helps him
escape from captivity (‘the sacredness of self-sacrifice and womanly
love’) (121). Might Conrad be working through some of his own idealistic
simplifications of ‘woman’ by projecting them onto a derided
so-called ‘feminist’, just as he projects onto Russians some of his own
ambivalent love of vague and portentous language? Furthermore, the
novel contains a number of women characters who, while not necessarily
free of illusions, are strong and admirable. The language-teacher
admires Natalia, not merely for conventional feminine charms, but
for ‘collected independence’ and ‘the strength of her nature’ (373),
while Sophia Antonovna is an independent woman of strong intellect,
confident of her political role and her emancipated sexuality, as
appears in her long conversation with Razumov (238–64). This
conversation returns often to the theme of gender roles, with a certain
ironic needling from both parties, from Razumov’s ‘Verily, without
women we can do nothing. So it stands written, and apparently so it
is’ (239–40) to Antonovna’s ‘you like other men are fastidious, full of
self-love and afraid of trifles’ (243), her allusion to ‘petty masculine
standards’ (248) and numerous similar comments. Like the languageteacher’s
view of Russians, Sophia Antonovna’s views of men are
neither endorsed nor rejected: they carry some force and conviction
and in certain ways fit various of the male characters, yet her judgement
is called into question by her seemingly unshakeable admiration
for the egotistical Peter Ivanovitch. The novel ends with a collision
between the respective prejudices of the language-teacher and
Antonovna, as the former expresses the hope that Peter Ivanovitch
will be beaten by his peasant girl, while Antonovna insists to the last
that he is ‘an inspired man’ (382).
The fear attached to the disclosure, to a woman, of knowledge (especially
knowledge of the male self and of male secrets) is represented in
partly comic form in relation to the supposed discernment of Madame
de S—. The scenes involving Razumov and the Russian revolutionaries
in Geneva are packed with double-edged allusions to understanding,
to truth and to trust. In one, Peter Ivanovitch momentarily alarms
Razumov by portentously warning him of the supposed powers of
discernment of Madame de S—: ‘Nothing can remain obscure before