On The Ethics Of Joseph Conrad's Fiction

Studies on Joseph Conrad have become an enormous industry in the field of literary criticism home and abroad. Conradian studies have generally undergone a process from being accepted as part of the tradition of English literature in the 1940s and 1950s to a critical hot spot in the 1960s and 1970s, and then to a critical upsurge since the 1980s. In the main, different research approaches are closely related with the social, ideological and literary trend of different times. Studies in the 1940s and 1950s focused on the moral and psychological aspects of Conrad's works, political and feminist criticism were the main stream of the 1960s and 1970s, while various voices of contemporary literary criticisms have been heard on Conrad since the 1980s ranging from narratological criticism, cultural criticism, postcolonial criticism and neo-historical criticism. Armed with literary ethical criticism as its major critical approach and integrated with social-historical, psycho-analytical, postcolonial and narratological approaches, this dissertation attempts a systematic exploration on the formation and development of the ethics of Conrad's fiction.Usually, scholars classify Conrad's fiction into three major categories: sea fiction, jungle fiction and political fiction. Most scholars, especially scholars in China, tend to regard Conrad's sea fiction as romantic and adventurous stories; they also take the jungle fiction, mostly set against the eastern Malayan islands or African jungles, either as adventurous stories or as stories showing Conrad's view of anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism. As for the political novels, most critics believe they manifest Conrad's political conservatism. The Conradian critical circle shares a common view that the above three kinds of fiction are the expression of the writer's different artistic concerns in different periods of his writing career and that they seem to lack a logical thematic development and hence have no clear line of interlocking thoughts. This dissertation proposes an opposite opinion.The term of "City Fiction" is initially coined in this dissertation to replace the commonly accepted term of "Political Fiction" referring to Conrad's three novels written between 1904 and 1911, mainly for two reasons: firstly, the concept of "Political Fiction" may run the risk of being misunderstood under the special Chinese critical context ; secondly, each of the three political novels is set against a European or South American city, which is intentionally undermined and demoralized by Conrad and thus symbolizes a seminary of moral degradation of modern civilization. The term of "City Fiction" does not contradict the political implication of the three novels, as the city is the centre of political activities. By coining this term, the author of this dissertation intends to show that the city, like the sea and the jungle in Conrad's fiction, is as important as a place for Conrad to scrutinize the morality of human being .Therefore, the sea, the jungle and the city are the three major worlds in Conrad's fiction respectively representing the simplicity of nature, the wildness of the primitive, and the moral degradation and hypocrisy of modern civilization. By the use of perfect irony, Conrad shows us profoundly and comically his interpretation of the nature, society and human being.Many scholars seem to have neglected the internal logical vein running through the three kinds of fiction. They have overlooked Conrad's claims in his Preface to The Niggers of "Narcissus" that art should "bring to light the truth, manifold and one , underlying its every aspect." According to my understanding, what Conrad considers as the "fundamental, enduring, and essential" of life is nothing but the human conscience, the very truth and ethics of human existence. Conrad's ethics is closely related with the moral tradition of British Merchant Service to which he was exposed while he was a seaman in the era of sailing ships. However, a full literature review on Conradian studies indicates that few attempts have been made to explore the pervasive influence of the ethics of British Merchant Service on Conrad's works, especially in a thorough and systematic way. This dissertation aims to make some contribution in this aspect.The author of this dissertation believes that the ethics of British Merchant Service is the axis on which Conrad's major works rotate. This can be found in three aspects: 1) His novels idealize such simple but noble virtues as fidelity, responsibility, restraint, courage, solidarity and lenience, which are the soul of the ethics of British Merchant Service; 2) His novels are filled with deep anxieties about the collapse of the above virtues at the turn of the century when modern civilization and imperialism were on the advance ; 3) His novels are stylistically and thematically the practice of the principle of fidelity, the core of the ethics of British Merchant Service.This dissertation endeavors to answer the following questions: 1) What were the ethical environments Conrad was situated in? And how is his writing influenced by such ethical environments? 2) What's the relationship among Conrad's sea fiction, jungle fiction and city fiction in terms of ethics? Is there a clear line of moral development? 3) What are the features of Conrad's ethical narrative? And finally, what inspirations should the Chinese readers draw from Conrad's fiction?To demonstrate the above questions, this dissertation is divided into five chapters besides the Introduction and the Conclusion. After an illustration of the meanings and purposes of this research, the Introduction makes a brief literature review on one century's studies of Conrad at home and abroad, especially on the critical responses of various contemporary literary criticisms to the works of Conrad. The literature review also makes a special analysis on the moral critical approaches to Conrad and points out the problems concerning moral criticism .Based on the above analysis, this dissertation claims its own innovation, that is, to explore the shaping and developing of the ethics in Conrad's major novels by focusing on the ethics of British Merchant Service in the 19^th century and adopting the approach of literary ethical criticism.Chapter One expounds the ethical environments which Conrad was situated in. As a writer living in the late Victorian Age and the Edwardian Age, Conrad witnessed a great social and ideological change as well as a clash between traditional and modern ethics at the turn of 20th century. This dissertation points out three factors that have directly or indirectly influenced Conrad's ethics: 1) anti-Social-Darwinist ethics from Huxley and Wallace, which shapes Conrad's moral ground of anti-racism and anti-colonialism; 2) the ethics of British Merchant Service and the so-called "Work Ethics" proposed by Carlyle , which are the source and core of the ethics of Conrad's fiction ,especially his sea fiction , and 3) Conrad's own multi-cultural identity and ethical anxiety, which contribute much to the formation of the moral paradox that is evident in his novels. This chapter is an integration of social-historical criticism and biographical study in research methodology.Chapter Two illustrates Conrad's philosophical view of human existence and ethics by examining several "simple" moral principles frequently advocated in his sea fiction. My analysis focuses on the influence of age and psychological change upon the moral formation of the characters. A close study shows that The Nigger of the "Narcissus ", which is an allegorical and poetic expression of the ethics of British Merchant Service, may serve as Conrad's seminal work both in art and ethics. This novella reveals an important philosophical statement implied in many of his coming fiction: man should be a moral being. Youth and Typhoon are two morally symbolic stories representing the Victorian "work ethics", the former being an elegy of the passing away of the old-day virtues, while the latter a tribute to the old captain Mac Whirr whose courage ,confidence and resistance in adversity set a moral example for the young sailors. The Shadow Line is, from the perspective of age and moral growth, an exhibition of how important such virtues as fidelity, responsibility, restraint and courage are to the shaping of the morality of young individuals. By contemplating the problems during one's initiation into maturity, The Shadow Line implies that a young man should learn to face bravely all problems in life including one's own moral weakness. Although the sea fiction is set against the ocean storm, its strength lies not in the description of the storm but in its implied moral power, especially in its stress of the heroic sublimity of certain ordinary virtues.Chapter Three is a combined approach to the two major concerns of the jungle fiction: "modern anxiety" and "moral discovery", by focusing on such key terms as the image of "the other", conflict of civilizations, moral reconstruction and narrative discourse. The jungle fiction, which is a record of the conflicts between the western civilization and the aboriginal civilization, exposes the immorality and hypocrisy of western civilization. The jungle fiction is also a reflection of Conrad's deep anxiety over the moral degradation of human being in the process of modern civilization as well as his moral dilemma as a result of his multi-cultural identities and moral anxieties. As the image of "the other" may imply the writer's (narrator's) cultural and moral position, this chapter begins with an analysis of the aboriginal figure Babalatchi, whose image as "the other" exhibits Conrad's anti-racism and anti-colonialism at the very beginning of his writing. By the description of Babalatchi's appearance, voice and intelligence, Conrad shows his sympathy for the aboriginal people but at same time reveals his ethical paradox, which finds its expression in the duality of Babalatchi as "the other" figure and the duality of the narrator's (writer's) attitudes towards colonialism. However, Heart of Darkness, having no such paradox and duality, finds Conrad's clear-cut stand in anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism and shows his merciless attack on the deception of western civilization as well as the avarice of human beings. Heart of Darkness discloses the "moral discovery" through Mallow's self-meditation as a narrator, his experience of "watching" and "being watched" and his personal contact with Kurtz. Artistically, Lord Jim is a continuation of Heart of Darkness, but thematically it is a further development and a deeper exploration, since it examines the failure of morality and the failure of modern civilization under the same microscope. Having encountered a moral failure, Jim exiles himself to an isolated Malayan island in order to reconstruct his moral image, but unfortunately he performs a tragedy of moral reconstruction as well as a tragedy of transplanting modern civilization to Patusan . In methodology, this chapter adopts literary ethical criticism as its major approach while borrowing from post-colonial criticism and narratology such key terms as "the other", cultural identity, civilization reconstruction and narrative discourse to illustrate my opinions.Chapter Four is a social, political, ethical and psychological analysis of various moral paradoxes in Conrad's city fiction such as fidelity and betrayal, greed and guilt, vanity and selfishness, honesty and deception and so on. The city fiction is a severe attack on the materialism and moral nihilism prevalent in modern society. Nostromo exposes the great corrosive power of the "material interests" upon individuals in the city of Sulaco. The Secret Agent lays bare with perfect irony the moral nihilism of the politicians and the common people in London .Under Western Eyes scrutinizes a young man's guiltiness and repentance for his immoral betrayal under political pressure in St. Petersburg and Geneva . If the sea fiction is Conrad's proposal for the ordinary but noble ethics of British Merchant Service, and the jungle fiction is his anxiety over the collapse of those virtues in the process of human civilization, then, the city fiction is the writer's appeal for the salvation of human being by his stress on the need of personal atonement and repentance. This chapter is a combination of literary ethical criticism, psychoanalytical criticism and social-historical criticism in research methodology.Chapter Five is an analysis on the ethical narrative of Joseph Conrad from the perspectives of literary ethical criticism and narratology. Conrad's fiction is filled with a strong sense of ethical narrative. This can be illustrated from two aspects: 1) Conrad reforms the traditional didactic "frame narrative" by a narrative technique called "delayed decoding", which mystifies the clear moral judgment of the traditional frame story. The typical Conradian narrator Marlow exhibits a strong sense of moral anxiety in his narration. 2) Conrad always treats his writing as something ethical, thinking that a writer must be absolutely honest and true to his senses of the world. " Progression deffet " is a narrative skill Conrad employs to duplicate the way people understand the world. The kernel of the ethics of Conrad's art lies in "Fidelity" and "Truth" . It is out of such ethics that Conrad seeks his innovation in writing .Conrad's devotion to "fidelity" and "truth" leads to the perfect blending of form and substance in his novel, exhibiting the fine conscience of a writer .The writer of this dissertation thinks that ethics of British Merchant Service is the very window of Conrad out of which he observes both the human being and the writing of works. His writing is itself a perfect practice of his ethics.The above analysis indicates that Conrad's three major kinds of fiction are closely knitted by a line of moral concerns : the proposal of traditional British Merchant Service ethics ( mainly in the " the sea fiction" )to the anxiety about loss of such virtues in the process of human civilization ( mainly in "the jungle fiction" ) to the attack of the corruption of material interests on human morality and finally an appeal for the salvation of human being by repentance ( mainly in "the city fiction " ).Therefore, an inner logical relation is perceptible in Conrad'sfiction, that is , " a proposal for virtues------an anxiety over the loss of virtues-----and a call forthe reconstruction of virtues ."The conclusion summarizes Conrad's view of art and ethics. Although his fiction is permeated with a strong sense of moral tragedy, Conrad is himself an optimistic writer who strongly opposes moral nihilism and pessimism. His ethics can be summarized in three dimensions: 1) According to Conrad, a moral man should be first of all a man of high responsibilities and a man abiding by work ethics; 2) According to Conrad, a moral man should be a man of fidelity; 3) According to Conrad, a moral man should be a man of repentance and lenience. This dissertation points out that the ethics of Conrad's fiction is exhibited through man's painful struggle with nature, society and man himself, and therefore his novels impose a strong sense of tragedy on the readers. However, Conrad's way of foregrounding moral spirit at a vital and critical moment endorses a high aesthetic significance.This dissertation is innovative in three aspects: 1) Based on the precedent scholars' tri-division of Conrad's major fiction, it proposes the term of "City Fiction" to replace the commonly accepted term of "Political Fiction". 2) By integrating literary ethical criticism with other criticisms and focusing on Conrad's idealization of the ethics of British Merchant Service, this dissertation demonstrates systematically the formation and development of the ethics in Conrad's fiction and reveals the different ethical preoccupations of the sea fiction, jungle fiction and city fiction. 3) It illustrates the meaning and function of the ethical narrative in Conrad's fiction and suggests that Conrad interprets both man and writing from the perspective of ethics.The author of this dissertation thinks that the ethics proposed in the fiction of Joseph Conrad and his appeal for the reconstruction of human morality are undoubtedly significant and illuminative for the contemporary Chinese literature as well as for the Chinese readers whose basic moral principles are now facing challenge and whose social morals are being corrupted at a time when China is undergoing a drastic social, economical and ethical change.