Conrad and Masculinity

178 Conrad and Masculinity
My first sensation was that of profound astonishment at this
evidence that she did really exist. And even then the visual impression
was more of colour in a picture than of the forms of actual life
... The white stairs, the deep crimson of the carpet, and the light
blue of the dress made an effective combination of colour to set off
the delicate carnation of that face, which ... made you think of
remote races, of strange generations, of the faces of women sculptured
on immemorial monuments.
(66–7)
As Robert Hampson notes, the effect given is that of ‘the organisation
and evaluation of a description in painterly terms’. He suggests that ‘the
reader’s attention is drawn, not to an aesthetic object, but to an
aesthetic way of seeing’, thus emphasizing the relativity of perspective
and interpretation. 30 That is true, but what is made clear by M. George’s
remark that ‘the visual impression was more of colour in a picture than
of the forms of actual life’ is that his ‘aesthetic way of seeing’ reduces
Rita to an object: not simply an object of desire but a lifeless object, like
the dummy. M. George’s responses to Rita construct her as a visual
object as relentlessly as they deny her an independent voice. There are
so many instances of this that it would be tedious to enumerate them,
but the following are two of the more striking examples. In a scene
where Rita expresses her sense of claustrophobia, she says that she
would like to escape to the sea with M. George, away from the oppressive
manipulation of Blunt and others. M. George does not consider
what experience might lie behind such a longing, despite the great
emotional significance that the sea has for him. Instead, he responds in
aesthetic terms, constructing in detail a setting and pictorial effects:
What a charming, gentle, gay, and fearless companion she would
have made! ... It would be a new occasion for me, a new viewpoint
for that faculty of admiration she had awakened in me at sight—at
first sight—before she opened her lips—before she ever turned her
eyes on me. She would have to wear some sort of sailor costume, a
blue woollen shirt open at the throat ... Dominic’s hooded cloak
would envelop her amply, and her face under the black hood would
have a luminous quality, adolescent charm, and an enigmatic
expression. The confined space of the little vessel’s quarterdeck
would lend itself to her cross-legged attitudes, and the blue sea
would balance gently her characteristic immobility.
(149)