The GermiNation in the Narration of Colonial Reality: The Two Cases of Conrad and Joyce

길혜령 한국제임스조이스학회 2009 제임스조이스저널 Vol.15 No.2

Both Conrad and Joyce can be designated as colonial modernists, as the modernity of their texts represents the nationality of Poland and Ireland, which was suppressed by the colonial rule of Russia and Britain, respectively. In Conrad’s and Joyce’s text, the individual is equivalent to the nation or the traditional community—the individuality of which is shackled by colonization. In this respect, the conflict narrated in Conrad and Joyce between the individual and the community, both in struggle, signifies the conflict within the colonized nation between its ideal—or national consciousness—and its reality. The conflict is resolved when the idealistic protagonist recognizes and integrates the colonial reality into a new reality of nation. Conrad and Joyce, thus, aspire for the creation of a new reality, or at least, the recognition of colonial reality throughout their narratives. In Conrad’s narrative, the strongly idealistic protagonist who struggles with the reality of “darkness” represents, though symbolically, the radically democratic ideology of the Polish Republic fighting with its autocratic reality. With the reality of Eastern autocracy being unacceptable and the ideal of Western democracy having failed, Conrad’s heroes who deny the reality are doomed, which ironically endorses the reality and potentially suggests hope for the Polish nation. In Joyce’s narrative, on the other hand, the protagonists, such as the poor artist Stephen and the Jewish advertising-man Bloom, embody the reality of colonial Ireland as much as its national consciousness, which is yet to be created. In other words, Joyce accepted the colonial reality, from which he created the “conscience” or consciousness of the Irish race that had never been a sovereign nation, unlike Conrad’s Poland. Joyce’s Bloom, who integrates the Jewish individual consciousness and Irish communal reality, personifies a vision of the Irish nation. Both Conrad and Joyce can be designated as colonial modernists, as the modernity of their texts represents the nationality of Poland and Ireland, which was suppressed by the colonial rule of Russia and Britain, respectively. In Conrad’s and Joyce’s text, the individual is equivalent to the nation or the traditional community—the individuality of which is shackled by colonization. In this respect, the conflict narrated in Conrad and Joyce between the individual and the community, both in struggle, signifies the conflict within the colonized nation between its ideal—or national consciousness—and its reality. The conflict is resolved when the idealistic protagonist recognizes and integrates the colonial reality into a new reality of nation. Conrad and Joyce, thus, aspire for the creation of a new reality, or at least, the recognition of colonial reality throughout their narratives. In Conrad’s narrative, the strongly idealistic protagonist who struggles with the reality of “darkness” represents, though symbolically, the radically democratic ideology of the Polish Republic fighting with its autocratic reality. With the reality of Eastern autocracy being unacceptable and the ideal of Western democracy having failed, Conrad’s heroes who deny the reality are doomed, which ironically endorses the reality and potentially suggests hope for the Polish nation. In Joyce’s narrative, on the other hand, the protagonists, such as the poor artist Stephen and the Jewish advertising-man Bloom, embody the reality of colonial Ireland as much as its national consciousness, which is yet to be created. In other words, Joyce accepted the colonial reality, from which he created the “conscience” or consciousness of the Irish race that had never been a sovereign nation, unlike Conrad’s Poland. Joyce’s Bloom, who integrates the Jewish individual consciousness and Irish communal reality, personifies a vision of the Irish nation.

Žižekian Spectres in Conrad: Or What Happens to the Hoard of Gold in The Rover

전수용 한국현대영미소설학회 2012 현대영미소설 Vol.19 No.3

For Žižek, ideology is a systematically distorted communication: a text in which under the influence of unavowed social interest (of domination, etc.), a gap separates its ‘official’, public meaning from its actual intention…” and the repressed surplus unsymbolized by ideolgy haunts society in the form of spectres. For instance, in a unified nation, class conflicts are often the repressed kernel of the ideologically smooth operation of a nation. In Conrad’s novels, various hoards of treasure, whether it be gold, silver, ivory, or even coal will be the spectre of the repressed kernel of the imperialist ideology. It is the place where the interests of the ruling and the ruled of the empire collide contrary to the ideological profession of mutual beneficiality of the imperialist arrangement. The problematic hoard is often packaged in the language of ideology such as material interest, efficiency, and progress. But there is always the repressed residue, the greed, and it comes back in the form of spectral images, visions, or rumors of hoards and works havoc on the lives of the characters. Since the imperialist ideology is not such a consciously fabricated ideology as Nazism, which seems to be Žižek’s model for ideological analysis, the spectre does not completely mask the repressed real as in Žižek, but his model suggests ways to solve the enigma of various spectral visions of hoards that haunt Conrad’s world. In Conrad’s last finished novel, The Rover, which is set in the post-revolutionary and Napoleonic France, one finds a pile of gold, which does not behave in the haunting and cursed manner as most of Conrad’s hoards do. This is perhaps due to the fact that in the time frame deployed in the novel, the imperialist ideology has not quite been consolidated securely and its residue has not acquired the haunting and fetishistic power to the full. However, even though the pile of gold seems to secure an existence free of ideology for the protagonist Peyrol, in the end it implicates him in the Napoleonic dream of regaining maritime hegemony for France. And the gold sunk in the well by Peyrol is turned into the government coffer perhaps to be used for the reconstruction of France and eventually for rebuilding the second French colonial empire. Tenuous as its relationship with the imperialist ideology seems to be, its trajectory is inseparable from the course of maritime hegemony and imperialism. Conrad’s seeming endorsement of the Napoleonic dream of conquest can be explained by his Polish background. Napoleon’s army campaigning against Russia was welcomed by the Poles as an army of liberation. Reliving the dream of homecoming and sacrificing himself for the success of Napoleonic campaign through the surrogate self Peyrol is Conrad the exile’s wish fulfillment, and his slackening of the critical edge in dealing with the spectre of imperialism, the hoard of treasure, can perhaps be understood in this context. For Žižek, ideology is a systematically distorted communication: a text in which under the influence of unavowed social interest (of domination, etc.), a gap separates its ‘official’, public meaning from its actual intention…” and the repressed surplus unsymbolized by ideolgy haunts society in the form of spectres. For instance, in a unified nation, class conflicts are often the repressed kernel of the ideologically smooth operation of a nation. In Conrad’s novels, various hoards of treasure, whether it be gold, silver, ivory, or even coal will be the spectre of the repressed kernel of the imperialist ideology. It is the place where the interests of the ruling and the ruled of the empire collide contrary to the ideological profession of mutual beneficiality of the imperialist arrangement. The problematic hoard is often packaged in the language of ideology such as material interest, efficiency, and progress. But there is always the repressed residue, the greed, and it comes back in the form of spectral images, visions, or rumors of hoards and works havoc on the lives of the characters. Since the imperialist ideology is not such a consciously fabricated ideology as Nazism, which seems to be Žižek’s model for ideological analysis, the spectre does not completely mask the repressed real as in Žižek, but his model suggests ways to solve the enigma of various spectral visions of hoards that haunt Conrad’s world. In Conrad’s last finished novel, The Rover, which is set in the post-revolutionary and Napoleonic France, one finds a pile of gold, which does not behave in the haunting and cursed manner as most of Conrad’s hoards do. This is perhaps due to the fact that in the time frame deployed in the novel, the imperialist ideology has not quite been consolidated securely and its residue has not acquired the haunting and fetishistic power to the full. However, even though the pile of gold seems to secure an existence free of ideology for the protagonist Peyrol, in the end it implicates him in the Napoleonic dream of regaining maritime hegemony for France. And the gold sunk in the well by Peyrol is turned into the government coffer perhaps to be used for the reconstruction of France and eventually for rebuilding the second French colonial empire. Tenuous as its relationship with the imperialist ideology seems to be, its trajectory is inseparable from the course of maritime hegemony and imperialism. Conrad’s seeming endorsement of the Napoleonic dream of conquest can be explained by his Polish background. Napoleon’s army campaigning against Russia was welcomed by the Poles as an army of liberation. Reliving the dream of homecoming and sacrificing himself for the success of Napoleonic campaign through the surrogate self Peyrol is Conrad the exile’s wish fulfillment, and his slackening of the critical edge in dealing with the spectre of imperialism, the hoard of treasure, can perhaps be understood in this context.

콘라드 『비밀요원』의 극화

류춘희(Chunhee Rhew) 19세기영어권문학회 2008 19세기 영어권 문학 Vol.12 No.2

Cultural theory in the twentieth-century has gained a general understanding that popular culture is also worth studying. Joseph Conrad, like his contemporary intellectuals, usually spoke contemptuously of film, saying it as “absolutely the lowest form of amusement.” Nevertheless, he has been one of the major British authors whose works have been frequently adapted to film art. Conrad's dialogue is dramatic in itself and his novel is “like a simple film with an elaborate commentary,” and so his stories are “ready-made for the cinema.” In the adaptation of Conrad, it seems to be virtually impossible to preserve the ‘ironic commentary and the chronological complexity’ which are his novels’ characteristic. To represent his plots which are typically based on an unfeasible moral dilemma is also difficult. A clue to the filming of Conrad’s novel is that how it reveals ‘the invisible, non-personified narrator’ through the camera eye, who articulates ironic comments as the proxy for the author in the text. This paper explores two film versions of The Secret Agent, along with the dramatization of Conrad himself. The Secret Agent is the first urban novel of Conrad, which shows his marginality through the characters’ alienation. Conrad was sceptical about his novel’s adaptation. He said, “To make an audience of comfortable, easy-going people sup on horrors is a hopeless enterprise.” Sabotage, adapted by Alfred Hitchcock in 1936, invokes one of the novel’s main themes: “the indeterminate nature of all action and the consequent difficulty in assigning blame.” However it failed to understand modern alienation and to penetrate revolutionary urban politics, so that it does not succeed in keeping pace with Conrad’s text. Christopher Hampton’s same titled adaptation of The Secret Agent in 1996 tried to revive the murky, muddy and phosphorescent streets of Dickensian London and to animate the imagery of the Imperial asphalt jungle. The players themselves act their roles earnestly in respect for the great author’s masterpiece, but in the film we lose Conrad’s own marginal perspective and his considerate narrative dynamic. Neither Sabotage nor The Secret Agent represents the innate marginality of this Polish immigrant writer, which is implied in the novel. The intrinsic progressiveness of Conrad’s text makes possible for different Zeitgeists to intercommunicate with each other. His words are still persuasive in the twenty-first century. If the camera eye represents the invisible narrator of Conrad’s text, the audience can listen to his words in films, and further they will see the very marginality which overwhelms the centre of English literature by blurring boundaries.

The GermiNation in the Narration of Colonial Reality: The Two Cases of Conrad and Joyce

( Hye Ryoung Kil ) 한국제임스조이스학회 2009 제임스조이스저널 Vol.15 No.2

Both Conrad and Joyce can be designated as colonial modernists, as the modernity of their texts represents the nationality of Poland and Ireland, which was suppressed by the colonial rule of Russia and Britain, respectively. In Conrad`s and Joyce`s text, the individual is equivalent to the nation or the traditional community-the individuality of which is shackled by colonization. In this respect, the conflict narrated in Conrad and Joyce between the individual and the community, both in struggle, signifies the conflict within the colonized nation between its ideal-or national consciousness-and its reality. The conflict is resolved when the idealistic protagonist recognizes and integrates the colonial reality into a new reality of nation. Conrad and Joyce, thus, aspire for the creation of a new reality, or at least, the recognition of colonial reality throughout their narratives. In Conrad`s narrative, the strongly idealistic protagonist who struggles with the reality of "darkness" represents, though symbolically, the radically democratic ideology of the Polish Republic fighting with its autocratic reality. With the reality of Eastern autocracy being unacceptable and the ideal of Western democracy having failed, Conrad`s heroes who deny the reality are doomed, which ironically endorses the reality and potentially suggests hope for the Polish nation. In Joyce`s narrative, on the other hand, the protagonists, such as the poor artist Stephen and the Jewish advertising-man Bloom, embody the reality of colonial Ireland as much as its national consciousness, which is yet to be created. In other words, Joyce accepted the colonial reality, from which he created the "conscience" or consciousness of the Irish race that had never been a sovereign nation, unlike Conrad`s Poland. Joyce`s Bloom, who integrates the Jewish individual consciousness and Irish communal reality, personifies a vision of the Irish nation.

Science, Commerce, and Imperial Expansion in British Travel Literature: Hugh Clifford`s and Joseph Conrad`s Malay Fiction

( Hye Ryoung Kil ) 한국영어영문학회 2011 영어 영문학 Vol.57 No.6

Conrad`s novels, specifically the Lingard Trilogy- Almayer`s Folly, An Outcast of the Islands, and The Rescue- and Lord Jim, set in the Southeast Asian or Malay Archipelago can be considered travel literature that played a significant role in British imperial expansion. Conrad`s Malay novels were based not only on his experience in the region during his commercial journey but also on information from earlier travel writings about the Malays and their customs, including James Brooke`s journals. The English traders in Conrad`s novels, namely Lingard and Jim, were partly modeled on Brooke, the White Rajah, who founded and ruled the English colony on the northwest of Borneo in the 1840s. The white traders in Conrad`s novels, who act as enlightened rulers, represent the British commercial expansionism, which was obscured by the phenomenon of the civilizing mission in the late nineteenth century. On the other hand, the colonial official Clifford`s tales and novels about British Malaya demonstrate the typical travel accounts of the late nineteenth century that stress the civilizing mission over commercial exploitation. The concept of the enlightening mission was rooted in evolutionary anthropological thinking, which developed as part of the natural history in the early nineteenth century. In fact, the development of natural history, stimulating British expansion in search of commercially exploitable resources and lands, enabled travel writing as the collection of natural knowledge to become a profitable business. In Conrad, the white characters are mainly traders acting as colonial rulers, while in Clifford, they are scientific rulers with their commercial interests rarely apparent. In sum, Conrad`s novels reveal that the new imperialism of the civilizing mission is still a commercial one, which disturbs rather than contributes to the imperial expansion-in contrast to other travel literature such as Clifford`s.

zizekian Spectres in Conrad: Or What Happens to the Hoard of Gold in The Rover

( Soo Young Chon ) 한국현대영미소설학회 2012 현대영미소설 Vol.19 No.3

For zizek, ideology is a systematically distorted communication: a text in which under the influence of unavowed social interest (of domination, etc.), a gap separates its ``official``, public meaning from its actual intention…" and the repressed surplus unsymbolized by ideolgy haunts society in the form of spectres. For instance, in a unified nation, class conflicts are often the repressed kernel of the ideologically smooth operation of a nation. In Conrad`s novels, various hoards of treasure, whether it be gold, silver, ivory, or even coal will be the spectre of the repressed kernel of the imperialist ideology. It is the place where the interests of the ruling and the ruled of the empire collide contrary to the ideological profession of mutual beneficiality of the imperialist arrangement. The problematic hoard is often packaged in the language of ideology such as material interest, efficiency, and progress. But there is always the repressed residue, the greed, and it comes back in the form of spectral images, visions, or rumors of hoards and works havoc on the lives of the characters. Since the imperialist ideology is not such a consciously fabricated ideology as Nazism, which seems to be zizek`s model for ideological analysis, the spectre does not completely mask the repressed real as in zizek, but his model suggests ways to solve the enigma of various spectral visions of hoards that haunt Conrad`s world. In Conrad`s last finished novel, The Rover, which is set in the post-revolutionary and Napoleonic France, one finds a pile of gold, which does not behave in the haunting and cursed manner as most of Conrad`s hoards do. This is perhaps due to the fact that in the time frame deployed in the novel, the imperialist ideology has not quite been consolidated securely and its residue has not acquired the haunting and fetishistic power to the full. However, even though the pile of gold seems to secure an existence free of ideology for the protagonist Peyrol, in the end it implicates him in the Napoleonic dream of regaining maritime hegemony for France. And the gold sunk in the well by Peyrol is turned into the government coffer perhaps to be used for the reconstruction of France and eventually for rebuilding the second French colonial empire. Tenuous as its relationship with the imperialist ideology seems to be, its trajectory is inseparable from the course of maritime hegemony and imperialism. Conrad`s seeming endorsement of the Napoleonic dream of conquest can be explained by his Polish background. Napoleon`s army campaigning against Russia was welcomed by the Poles as an army of liberation. Reliving the dream of homecoming and sacrificing himself for the success of Napoleonic campaign through the surrogate self Peyrol is Conrad the exile`s wish fulfillment, and his slackening of the critical edge in dealing with the spectre of imperialism, the hoard of treasure, can perhaps be understood in this context.

“Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss”: The Politics of Replication and Conrad’s Politics of Humanity

John G. Peters 한국영어영문학회 2020 영어 영문학 Vol.66 No.2

In contrast to the conventional political novel, which clearly promotes one political system over another, Joseph Conrad routinely rejects all political systems because they privilege ideas over people. In these works, Conrad consistently chronicles a political plot and a personal plot. These plots interact, and invariably Conrad focuses on the effect of the political plot on the personal plot, or more particularly on the damage the events of the political plot have on the individuals of the personal plot. Whether it be the deaths of Winnie and Stevie in The Secret Agent or the destruction of Razumov’s life in Under Western Eyes or Paul’s exile in “An Anarchist” or the death of Ruiz in “Gaspar Ruiz,” Conrad represents human beings not benefitting from political systems but being victims of them. Furthermore, Conrad regularly represents the competing political factions in his works as mirroring rather than opposing one another, which results in the end in their appearing to be little different from one another. The numerous revolutions in Nostromo are equally corrupt; the revolutionary movements and the established governments in The Secret Agent both believe that the ends justify the means; and the revolutionaries and authorities in Under Western Eyes are in the end indistinguishable from one another in their disregard for law and order. And yet Conrad does have hope, but that hope lies in human relationships, in such characters as Tekla in Under Western Eyes and Peyrol in The Rover, who choose people over politics, as we see Conrad time and again affirming those who affirm humanity and rejecting those who reject humanity.

Conrad's West : (Anti-)Colonial Mapping in Under Western Eyes

Jung-Hwa Lee 한국영미어문학회 2008 영미어문학 Vol.- No.89

This essay reconsiders the familiar reading of Joseph Conrad as homo duplex, torn apart between his Polish past and English identity, by examining the construction of ""the West"" in Under Western Eyes. Born in Poland colonized by Russia and building his literary career in the British Empire, Conrad depicts Russia as a fundamentally oppressive and dangerous society. The English narrator fulfills his function by obsessively establishing and repeatedly confirming the distinction between ""the West: and Russia. Conrad mobilizes the narrator's imperialistic assumptions in order to discursively contain and counterattack Russia from a supposedly ""superior"" Western perspective. At the same time, by stressing the incompatibility of ""the West"" and Russia in the same way as he defines Poland as a Western country in his essays, Conrad culturally associates Poland and England under the umbrella terms of ""the West."" Gaining a new significance in the early twentieth-century, “the West,"" gave Conrad the language to map his two ""homes"" as one territory of civilization that was to be protected from Russian autocracy. Thus, Conrad's West embodies his double relation to imperialism, suggesting that British imperialistic assumptions and Polish anti-imperialistic nationalism could be intermingled in his mind.

Conrad's West: (Anti-)Colonial Mapping in Under Western Eyes

이정화 한국영미어문학회 2008 영미어문학 Vol.- No.89

This essay reconsiders the familiar reading of Joseph Conrad as homo duplex, torn apart between his Polish past and English identity, by examining the construction of "the West" in Under Western Eyes. Born in Poland colonized by Russia and building his literary career in the British Empire, Conrad depicts Russia as a fundamentally oppressive and dangerous society. The English narrator fulfills his function by obsessively establishing and repeatedly confirming the distinction between "the West" and Russia. Conrad mobilizes the narrator's imperialistic assumptions in order to discursively contain and counterattack Russia from a supposedly "superior" Western perspective. At the same time, by stressing the incompatibility of "the West" and Russia in the same way as he defines Poland as a Western country in his essays, Conrad culturally associates Poland and England under the umbrella term of "the West." Gaining a new significance in the early twentieth-century, "the West," gave Conrad the language to map his two "homes" as one territory of civilization that was to be protected from Russian autocracy. Thus, Conrad's West embodies his double relation to imperialism, suggesting that British imperialistic assumptions and Polish anti-imperialistic nationalism could be intermingled in his mind.

Science, Commerce, and Imperial Expansion in British Travel Literature: Hugh Clifford’s and Joseph Conrad’s Malay Fiction

길혜령 한국영어영문학회 2011 영어 영문학 Vol.57 No.6

Conrad’s novels, specifically the Lingard Trilogy— Almayer’s Folly,An Outcast of the Islands, and The Rescue— and Lord Jim, set in the Southeast Asian or Malay Archipelago can be considered travel literature that played a significant role in British imperial expansion. Conrad’s Malay novels were based not only on his experience in the region during his commercial journey but also on information from earlier travel writings about the Malays and their customs, including James Brooke’s journals. The English traders in Conrad’s novels, namely Lingard and Jim,were partly modeled on Brooke, the White Rajah, who founded and ruled the English colony on the northwest of Borneo in the 1840s. The white traders in Conrad’s novels, who act as enlightened rulers, represent the British commercial expansionism, which was obscured by the phenomenon of the civilizing mission in the late nineteenth century. On the other hand, the colonial official Clifford’s tales and novels about British Malaya demonstrate the typical travel accounts of the late nineteenth century that stress the civilizing mission over commercial exploitation. The concept of the enlightening mission was rooted in evolutionary anthropological thinking, which developed as part of the natural history in the early nineteenth century. In fact, the development of natural history,stimulating British expansion in search of commercially exploitable resources and lands, enabled travel writing as the collection of natural knowledge to become a profitable business. In Conrad, the white characters are mainly traders acting as colonial rulers, while in Clifford, they are scientific rulers with their commercial interests rarely apparent. In sum, Conrad’s novels reveal that the new imperialism of the civilizing mission is still a commercial one, which disturbs rather than contributes to the imperial expansion—in contrast to other travel literature such as Clifford’s.