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    File: \DP\0035\00354.TXT         Wed Apr 13 15:55:42 1994
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$Title{Works of Joseph Conrad
Essay Questions and Bibliography}
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$Author{Conrad, Joseph}
$Affiliation{Department Of English Education, New York University}
$Subject{marlowe
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kurtz
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Title:       Works of Joseph Conrad
Book:        Study Guide
Author:      Conrad, Joseph
Critic:      Weiss, James
Affiliation: Department Of English Education, New York University

Essay Questions and Bibliography

Essay Questions And Answers

1. Discuss religious allusions in Conrad's stories.

     Answer: Conrad chooses images from Christian, classical, and Eastern
religions. These images, in turn, fall into three classifications, regardless
of their original source. First, and foremost, Conrad uses the classical
device of a descent into Hell. Second, he follows the traditional Christian
pattern of the quest. Finally, he uses the figure of the god made into man,
the avatar, which occurs in all religions.

     The pattern of a descent into Hell is most clearly seen in Heart of
Darkness. The pattern is used in Homer's Odyssey and in Virgil's Aeneid. The
hero of the tale must descend into Hell to discover some piece of information
that is extremely important to him. The only person who can provide this
information is the "shade" of a former friend or relative. The journey into
Hell is dangerous and filled with perils on all sides. Once in Hell, the hero
finds a misty, clouded scene. If he meets people, they usually appear vague
and indistinct to him. The parallel with the Heart of Darkness is fairly clear
- Marlowe thinks of Kurtz as a voice. When he finally does reach Kurtz,
Marlowe talks to him for several days, until Kurtz dies. Kurtz's final message
to Marlowe is relayed like the messages in classical myth-it is horrific and
ambiguous. Finally, the scene in the interior jungle is sufficiently "Hellish"
to satisfy us: the shrunken heads mounted on posts before Kurtz's house, the
strange "ceremonies" in which Kurtz and the natives indulge, the witch doctors
standing on the shore-line as Kurtz leaves, and most of all, the dense,
white fog that envelops the river-boat just before it reaches Kurtz's
station.

     The pattern, then, is complete: the dangerous voyage within, the mists
and fogs of Hell, the asking for information, and the final message itself.

     "Quest" is a literary term for search, with some special implications.
Perhaps the most famous of all quest stories is the search for the Holy Grail.
In the Middle Ages, knights believed that the chalice from which Christ drank
still existed. Many knights went off in search of the chalice or grail. Thus a
quest is a searching after something of considerable importance; and
successfully finding the object would bring special powers and grace to the
hero. A typical theme in modern literature is a quest for a father, a theme
used by James Joyce in his great novel Ulysses. The necessary elements of the
quest include an object to be discovered, the trip of discovery itself, and
the enlightenment at the end. The Secret Sharer offers us a good example of
such a pattern. At the beginning of the story, the young Captain confesses
that he is a stranger to his ship and to himself. His voyage, then, will be to
discover both himself and the world around him. His voyage is filled with
danger, the danger of discovery of his second self, Leggatt, by the crew of
the ship. In the second part of the story; the release of Leggatt and the
course of the ship through the shadow of Koh-ring is dangerous too. The
young Captain succeeds in meeting this test of his self-command, and of his
seamanship, with the help of his hat, the Jungian symbol for the integrity of
the personality. Of course, the hat can also be the Christian symbol of the
act of kindness which works to redeem the giver.

     The avatar occurs primarily in the figure of Kurtz. In the Heart of
Darkness he is presented as a universal genius appearing to the native as a
God/man. His supernatural attributes are repeated over and over again; he is
both too good and too bad for living in this world. He may be looked upon as
the compendium of the Old Testament and the New Testament Gods. Wise and
Satanic by turns, he offers Marlowe an insight into the divided nature of man
and perhaps of man's supernal image-God.

     Conrad uses the religious allusions to give structure and order to his
tales, and to extend their rich significance These tales must not be read as
pure religious allegories. They form along with the psychological probing and
narrative action an organic testament about the moral structure of the
universe.

2. Why does Marlowe lie to Kurtz's Intended?

     Answer: Critics have offered many interpretations of Marlowe's lie. K. A.
Bruffee considers the lie an example of Marlowe's newly won moral restraint.
Inasmuch as the truth can conceivably destroy the Intended's illusion of Kurtz
along with the Intended herself, Marlowe decides that his lie is situationally
ethical and preferred to a truth which might be destructive.

     However this view does not consider Conrad's attitude toward women and
the dark information he has received from Kurtz. As a result of his quest
Marlowe has discovered that the complete truth is black indeed. In his
identification with Kurtz, Marlowe perceived that the soul of man has infinite
capability for Satanic excesses. In our subliminal nature, if we can ever get
in touch with it, lies a primitive savagery that is sinister and horrific.
Upon contact with this debasing illumination, Marlowe falls deathly ill; he is
spiritually paralyzed. When he returns to Brussels, he regards the populace
with a cosmic contempt: "They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me
an irritating presence, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know
the things I knew."

     Furthermore, Marlowe's lie to the Intended is really the last of three
lies he tells. The first occurs when he refuses to disabuse Kurtz's cousin of
the notion that Kurtz was a "universal genius." The second occurs when Marlowe
gives the journalist the report, "Suppression of Savage Customs," with the
postscript ripped off. These might be termed lies of omission where Marlowe
has amended the truth rather than embroidered or deliberately misrepresented
it. In order to preserve the inferior community from the searing truth of
Kurtz, he has left them in ignorance. As Marlowe tells his third lie perhaps
we might say that unlike the first two he is not interested in protecting
society from the truth, but rather he is trying to protect his own conception
of truth. He has admitted to a romantic notion about women. In discussing his
aunt, Marlowe says, "They live in a world of their own," and "It's queer how
out of touch with truth women are." Nevertheless, they have a capacity for
survival that males lack, and, furthermore, they can suffer and still maintain
their fidelity and belief systems. The Intended is described by Marlowe as
having a "mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering." Marlowe
lies to her differently from the others. He intentionally misrepresents
Kurtz's last words. He explains that telling her the truth "would have been
too dark-too dark altogether." Since Marlowe is so spiritually deflated by
his contact with Kurtz, isn't he lying to preserve his belief in the one human
fact that preserves us all-the invincible spirit of woman? Conrad seems to
be saying that if the truth vanquishes the female principle, then we are all
destroyed. Rather than cut himself off from all illusion, Marlowe lies and
remains, as the last words of the story indicate, in "the heart of an immense
darkness."

3. Describe the use of imagery in The Secret Sharer.

     Answer: There is no universal agreement as to the meaning of the word
"imagery"; it is best to describe the different meanings that may be applied
to the term, and then to show how these various kinds of imagery operate in
The Secret Sharer. The most widely accepted meaning of the word "imagery" is
figurative or metaphoric language, especially ornamental language. Implied in
this version of figurativeness would be the analysis of diction, i.e., word
choice, as well as sensual "pictures" delivered through the word choice. Louis
Leiter has done the best job of analyzing the "image cluster" in this story.
Textual analysis of the first-section reveals images which suggest
"insanity," "mystery," and "moral obtuseness," and Leiter suggests that we
must correlate the clusters with the development of the theme of self -
knowledge. The setting at first is represented as mysterious and unknown
("half-submerged," "incomprehensible," "crazy of aspect"). As the narrator
gets to know himself and what Leggatt has come to reveal to him, the images
change to words of illumination ("silvery," "phosphorescence," "light,"
"astonished").

     Another interpretation of the meaning of the word "imagery" is an
enlarged one; it includes the symbolic meanings latent in the perceived
picture. For instance, the pagoda and the tug which appear at the beginning of
the story can be seen as fore-shadowing symbols of the mountain of Koh -
ring and the taking of the ship into land. The land which the tug heads for is
described as "impassive," and the tug gets lost behind the hill of the great
pagoda. That is, until we become involved in the search for self-hood, we
cannot see the solid earth of our personalities. Leggatt sees himself as a
Cain, a kind of a scape-goat thrown out of society. The Captain sees Leggatt
as a double image of himself, the secret sharer of his unconscious life. When
we begin to examine the word clusters and the symbolic clusters cooperatively,
we can apprehend Conrad's descriptive technique-in which the word itself
became "irrecoverably symbol." Images, what we see, and meaning, what we
understand, are organized in such a way as to implement both the factual
reality of the story and its thematic extension. There is a continuous working
backward and forward between the concrete and the theoretical, between the
real and the abstract: the proud swimmer, metaphorically and literally,
strikes out for aanew destiny.

4. Discuss Joseph Conrad's use of specific detail.

     Answer: One of Joseph Conrad's greatest talents was his use of the
minute, specific detail in order to suggest a general truth. This technique
can be seen in his description of the Harlequin in Heart of Darkness. When
Marlowe first encounters him all he sees are a bundle of sence impressions:
his clothes are made of "brown holland," his suit is covered with patches,
"bright patches, blue, red, and yellow-patches on the back, patches on
elbows, on knees; colored binding round his jacket. . . ." The description of
the details of the Harlequin's clothing leads to a minute description of his
face and finally to some kind of evaluation of his personality. Conrad used
this kind of descriptive technique to ensnare the reader's belief and persuade
him to inner judgments about the character and/or event. According to Conrad
himself, his overriding purpose as an author was to make his audience "see."
He meant this vision to be on as many levels as possible. He used the means of
vivid, specific sensory detail for the purpose of seducing the re,der into
perceiving an inner vision.

5. What was Conrad's attitude toward women?

     Answer: Women are conspicuously absent from The Secret Sharer. They do
not play a part in the narrative action nor are they referred to in passing.
In the Heart of Darkness they do appear but somehow they are not very clearly
drawn. First there is Marlowe's aunt who helps him to get his job. There are
two women sitting in the "sepulchral city" knitting black wool when Marlowe
appears for his interview. There is the magnificent native woman who loves
Kurtz, and there is Kurtz's "Intended," whom both we and Marlowe meet at the
end of the tale. At the beginning of the story Marlowe, speaking of his aunt,
has remarked, "It's queer how out of touch with truth women are." When we
consider another of Marlowe's statements, that there is nothing that he hates
so much as a lie, and when we consider his final lie to Kurtz's "Intended," we
begin to get an interesting picture of Marlowe's attitude toward women. They
are at once to be protected from the truth and to be denied it. Perhaps Conrad
wants to preserve their stainless illusion so that they can minister to men
who have had their illusions and idealism shattered by reality.

Bibliography

I Conrad's Major Works

(with original date of publication in book form)

Almayer's Folly (1895)

An Outcast of the Islands (1896)

The Nigger of the "Narcissus" (1897)

Tales of Unrest (1898)

Lord Jim (1900)

Youth (1902) (This volume contained The Heart of Darkness.)

Typhoon (1903)

Nostromo (1904)

The Mirror of the Sea (1906)

The Secret Agent (1907)

Under Western Eyes (1911)

A Personal Record (1912)

'Twixt Land and Sea (1912) (This volume contained The Secret Sharer.)

Chance (1913)

Victory (1915)

The Shadow Line (1917)

The Arrow of Gold (1919)

The Rescue (1920)

Notes on Life and Letters (1921)

The Rover (1923)

Tales of Hearsay (1925)

Last Essays (1926)

II Bibliography

     Lohf, Kenneth A., and Sheehy, Eugene P. Joseph Conrad at Mid-Century;
Editions and Studies, 1895-1955. Minneapolis, 1957.

III Biographies

     Baines, Jocelyn. Joseph Conrad. New York, 1960. Jean-Aubry, Gerard.
Joseph Conrad Life and Letters. 2 vols. London, 1927.

The Sea Dreamer: A Definitive Biography of Joseph Conrad. New York, 1957.

IV Criticism-Books

Guerard, Albert, Jr. Conrad the Novelist. Cambridge, Mass., 1958.

Karl, Frederick R. A Readers Guide to Joseph Conrad. New York, 1960.

Levis, F. R. The Great Tradition. London, 1948.

     Stallman, R. W., ed. The Art of Joseph Conrad A Critical Symposium.
Michigan State University, 1960.

Van Ghent, Dorothy. The English Novel: Form and Function New York, 1953.

     Van O'Connor, William. Forms of Modern Fiction. Bloomington, Indiana,
1959.

V Criticism-Articles

     Collins, Harold P. "Kurtz, the Cannibals, and the Secondrate Helsman,"
Western Humanities Review. Autumn, 1954.

     Day, A. Grove. "Pattern in Lord Jim: One Jump After Another." College
English, April, 1952.

     Dean, Leonard F. "Tragic Pattern in Conrad's The Heart of Darkness,"
College English. November, 1944.

     Ford, William J. "Lord Jim: Conrad's Study in Depth Psychology,"
Northwestern University Medical School Quarterly Bulletin. Spring, 1950

     Haugh, Robert F. "The Structure of Lord Jim," College English. December,
1951.
