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Conrad and Masculinity

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232 Notes<br />

22 R. W. B. Lewis, ‘The Current of <strong>Conrad</strong>’s Victory’, in Joseph <strong>Conrad</strong>, ed.<br />

Harold Bloom (New York <strong>and</strong> Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1986), pp.<br />

63–81 (p. 78).<br />

23 Meyers, pp. 78, 83–4.<br />

24 Meyers, p. 83.<br />

25 Meyers, p. 85.<br />

26 Lewis, pp. 63, 64.<br />

27 Lewis, pp. 80, 81.<br />

28 Lewis, p. 71.<br />

29 For example, Cedric Watts considers <strong>Conrad</strong> in terms of the author’s own<br />

phrase ‘homo duplex’: Joseph <strong>Conrad</strong> (Writers <strong>and</strong> Their Work) (Plymouth:<br />

Northcote House, 1994), p. 1; see also Watts, The Deceptive Text: An<br />

Introduction to Covert Plots (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1984), pp. 13–14,<br />

21–4, on ‘Heart of Darkness’ as a ‘Janiform’ text (i.e. paradoxical or selfdivided)<br />

<strong>and</strong> Kurtz as a divided character. Jacques Berthoud interprets<br />

<strong>Conrad</strong>’s novels as making the tragic point that ‘man seems capable of<br />

discovering the reality of his own values only through their defeat or<br />

contradiction’: Berthoud, p. 189. See also Kenneth Graham, ‘<strong>Conrad</strong> <strong>and</strong><br />

Modernism’, in The Cambridge Companion to Joseph <strong>Conrad</strong>, pp. 203–22 (pp.<br />

215–19).<br />

30 Stephen Heath, ‘Difference’, Screen, 19.3 (Autumn 1978), 51–112; rpt. in<br />

The Sexual Subject, pp. 47–106 (pp. 49–50, 60).<br />

31 Heath, ‘Difference’, p. 50. De Lauretis quotes Lacan as follows: ‘the interdiction<br />

against autoerotism bearing on a particular organ, which for that<br />

reason acquires the value of an ultimate (or first) symbol of lack (manque), has<br />

the impact of pivotal experience’, <strong>and</strong> comments that ‘desire <strong>and</strong> signification<br />

are defined ultimately as a process inscribed in the male body, since<br />

they are dependent on the initial – <strong>and</strong> pivotal – experiencing of one’s<br />

penis’ (de Lauretis, p. 23).<br />

32 Here using ‘woman’ in de Lauretis’s sense (see Chapter 7, note 29 above).<br />

33 Whitford, p. 19.<br />

34 Whitford, p. 22.<br />

35 On the first of these see the treatment of Don Juste <strong>and</strong> the Sulaco parliamentarians<br />

in Nostromo, ‘putting all their trust into words of some sort,<br />

while murder <strong>and</strong> rapine stalked over the l<strong>and</strong>’ (N, 367–8), <strong>and</strong> of the<br />

supposed Russian love of words in Under Western Eyes <strong>and</strong> The Secret Agent.<br />

On <strong>Conrad</strong>’s scepticism about, <strong>and</strong> commitment to, language, see Epstein,<br />

passim <strong>and</strong> Said, The World, the Text <strong>and</strong> the Critic, pp. 90–110. For <strong>Conrad</strong>’s<br />

view of utopian visions, see the portrayal of the utopian hopes of the revolutionaries<br />

in Under Western Eyes <strong>and</strong> The Secret Agent.<br />

36 See Mrs Gould’s reflection: ‘There was something inherent in the necessities<br />

of successful action which carried with it the moral degradation of the<br />

idea’ (N, 521).

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