Conrad and Masculinity

Vision and the Economies of Empire and Masculinity 189
available’ are concentrated, on all three levels. We are offered the
possibility of identifying with Heyst’s look, or of identifying with
either Davidson or Lena, both of whom are themselves, in different
ways, identifying with Heyst’s look.
Earlier in the novel, however, the fluid possibilities of subject identification
are developed through more diverse patterns of looking.
Heyst’s relationship with Lena, which ends with her seeking his glance,
also begins with that glance: ‘She had captured Heyst’s awakened
faculty of observation ... He looked at her anxiously, as no man ever
looks at another man’ (71). In between, their interaction is continually
described in terms of eyes, gazes and glances. The presentation of the
heroine of Victory, as in other late Conrad works, shows a combination
of fetishization with certain hesitant signs of an understanding of what
might underlie the male need (Conrad’s need, the male reader’s need)
to fetishize a heroine. Sight is of course a traditional focus of interest
and source of tropes in the literature of love but the sustained
frequency of such references to the visual in Victory is striking, and can
be demonstrated only by rather extensive quotation: 3
She was astonished almost more by the near presence of the man
himself ... the kindly expression of the man’s blue eyes looking into
her own.
(72–3)
They looked at each other ... with a surprised, open gaze ... it was a
long time before they averted their eyes; and very soon they met
again, temporarily, only to rebound, as it were. At last they steadied
in contact ... Heyst had been interested by the girl’s
physiognomy ... the features had more fineness than those of any
other feminine countenance he had ever had the opportunity to
observe so closely.
(74)
‘What else did you mean when you came up and looked at me so
close?’
(86)
‘I understand that women easily forget whatever in their past
diminishes them in their eyes.’
‘It’s your eyes that I was thinking of ...’
(88)