Revisiting the Conrad Oeuvre an Eastern Gaze

Abstract

Against the backdrop of ongoing debate about Joseph Conrad being a colonialist or anti-colonialist and a conservative or liberal European writer, the present study offers a moderate view of Conrad examining his presentation of the East and the West from an Eastern perspective. While most critics have focused on aesthetic aspects, themes of human values, treatment of imperialism, moral perspectives and narrative methods in his works, a few have looked at his portrayal of Africa and the East. In his fiction, the presence of moral question, psychological reflections of characters, critical views of empire, anarchy and revolution, fidelity to duty and human experiences has made him one of the universally acknowledged modern writers. Most critics have considered the writer a genius, except some early reviewers, who, mostly British, consider his Eastern fiction too exotic, and also, some postcolonial critics who label him as Eurocentric and racist. Creating indeterminacy these debates, nonetheless, have made him appear as an ambivalent and complex writer. Much of this ambivalence and complexity arises, however, owing to his representation of different races of people in different settings of his fiction that comprise almost every continent of the world– Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia and America; and this has given his oeuvre a magical transnational aura. Thus, this dissertation appraises Conrad as a transnational writer, and even as a precursor of postcolonial literature. Drawing on Edward Said’s secular criticism, this study compares both his Eurocentric secular and contrapuntal presentation of the East with his secular criticism of the West from an Eastern perspective and offers a more nuanced point of view. It also investigates his pessimistic views about European politics of imperialism and war, Russian politics of autocracy, anarchy and revolution, and American globalization that caused widespread human suffering. The thesis is divided into six chapters. The first chapter offers a short overview of the thesis through the objective, rationale and literature review, and develops the theoretical framework drawing on Postcolonial criticism and Said’s secular criticism. The second chapter provides a short biography of the author from his childhood up to the start of the writing career and then connects the incidents of his life to his works. The third chapter examines his European perspective but at the same time traces his contrapuntal portrayal of the East and Africa, and secular criticism of imperialism. Then Chapter Four investigates Conrad’s political and social views of the West, and marks his critical skepticism about autocracy, anarchy and revolution. And the fifth chapter critically views Conrad’s Eurocentric colonial treatment of the East and at the same time explores his ambivalent and contrapuntal secular viewpoints. The sixth chapter concludes the thesis showing Conrad’s greatness as a writer and his relevance to our time.