Aspects Of The Other

A hundred years has quickly passed since the time of Joseph Conrad, a famous novelist and one of the pioneers of modern English literature. The issue of The Other, which drew extensive attention in Conrad's time, is now attracting even greater interest in an era advocating multiple cultures.In Conrad's time, the interest for The Other was stimulated by the fact of the western countries in the transformation of culture, with scientific development becoming the norm of thought and evolution gaining extensive acceptance, which constituted great impact on the Christianity-based western culture, together with a fin de siacle pessimistic sentiment, cultural crisis came into being, and this made it necessary to cast the eye out of the western countries. On the other hand, colonial expansion towards the end of the century made it possible to realize the desire to look for The Other. It was a fashion for writers to construct imaginary images of The Other to prove the superiority of the self. Thus, Imperialist Romance writers such as H. Rider Haggard and G. A. Henty were turning out one after another of such popular books, affecting the English culture and even the education system. In the works of Rudyard Kipling, a famous writer, also saturate with imperialist characteristics. Among the writers involving in the construction of The Other, Joseph Conrad, due to the duality of his identity and his unique experience, shows both imperialist discourse and imperialist-criticizing discourse. On the one hand, he takes over the tradition of English literature in construction of The Other, on the other hand, he grows out of the limit of the tradition, establishing monumental contribution in the history of English literature. As a testimony of his global importance, there is already a Conradian Study in the world.The most dynamic of his novels are those involving the construction of The Other. Of the five novels regarded as canons by famous English literary critic F. R. Leavis, namely, Victory, Nostromo, The Secret Agent, Under Western Eyes and Chance, only The Secret Agent and Chance took place in Britain, and the rest happened in places belonging to The Other. What's more, in The Secret Agent, there is a Russian character, whose motherland is regarded as The Other by Conrad. Therefore, in effect, Chance remains the only one not involving the construction of The Other. Arnold Davison thinks there are five great novels by Conrad that face the sorry and helplessness of life. Of the five novels he mentions, four are the same as those of Leavis, with the only difference of Lord Jim instead of Chance. All the books in Davison's list involved in the construction of The Other, with four of them taking place in the places of The Other.Scholars and author from both West and non-western countries have participated in the study of Conrad's novels involving the construction of The Other, with imperialist discourse as a focus point. West or Non-west, no study can escape the weakness of stressing on one side of Conrad's discourse while neglecting the other. Post-colonialist and the study of imperialist romance in relation to Conrad represent two different opinions in the West. Edward Said made use of Conrad as an important source for his study of the relation between culture and imperialism, prescribing viewpoint before looking for proof from Conrad and the other English novelists. He only takes what is useful to prove his viewpoints, neglecting the others, some of which may prove just the opposite. What he is interested is hegemony of the West, the will of Europeans to conquer and rule the world.The study of imperialist romance in relation to Conrad finds, by contrast to the imperialist romance which advocates imperialism with outcry, Conrad's works take a more critical attitude towards imperialist expansion. So those scholars tend to be more interested in his anti-colonialist discourse, neglecting the fact that both colonialist discourse and anti-colonialist discourse exist in Conrad's fictions.Non-western criticism of Conrad's colonialist discourse is represented by Chinua Achebi and Peter Nazareth. The former represent the angry Africans while the latter the Africans with gratitude. Achebi is angry because his race is described as inferior, while Nazareth is grateful to Conrad because he reveals to the reader the ugly deeds of the colonialists. Both sides raise passionate argument instead of rational analysis. None can convince the other, but none would admit the truth in the argument of the other side. Chinese scholars are also involved in the discussion of Conrad's colonialist discourse, with the same weakness of emphasizing on the one side of the discourse while neglecting the other.This dissertation starts with the above weakness. With the methodology of cultural study, I try to associate Conrad's construction of The Other with English literary tradition as well his duality in identity and unique experience, to clarify how they affect the way Conrad makes his construction, and how such construction contain a dual discourse for and against colonialist expansion. I also try to make analysis of his text on the basis of the dual discourse.The value of studying Conrad's construction of The Other lies in its significance to the reality. The major method he employs for the construction of The Other, which he inherited from English literary tradition, is "reduction of The Other "and "de-otherness". If we apply it to test the course of action today by US and other western countries, we will find they are using the same method in international affairs as well as in the issue of cultural communication, though the western thought and philosophy have undergone a process from self-centered to other-centered in the relation between the self and The Other. Therefore, the study of Conrad helps to see clearly the nature of what is going on in the world today. At the same time, because the method of "reduction of The Other" and "de-otherness" is not ye out of date, Conrad's criticism of imperialism is also still valid today.In the construction of The Other, Conrad inherited from English literary tradition "reduction of The Other "and "de-otherness", reducing the unfamiliar things to the discourse of the narrator, whose hermeneutics will facilitate his objective for the reader to understand. However, not all his construction of The Other can be reduced, some, though exist in the discourse of the narrator, even the narrator himself feels at a loss to mastery of it. Another thing that is unique of Conrad is, some of his " had native " will not get retaliation. Instead, they live a lucrative life to the end of the story. In traditional idea, the self turning to The Other is for the sake of recovering its self on a higher level, but in Conrad, sometimes the self can never recover its self again. " Going native ", the process of turning to The Other for the westerners, is dreaded by the heroes of the imperialist romance. The characters in Conrad's fictions also try to resist such a process, but some will find helpless in the end, and has to take the route of "going native " with no chance to return.There are four chapters in this dissertation. The first chapter deals with the construction of The Other in the English literary tradition, presenting as examples William Shakespeare, Daniel Defoe and Lord Byron, for their respective contribution to the construction of The Other, and the characteristics as well as their relation with respective times in each. The relation of imperialist romance with Conrad's construction of The Other is also taken up in this chapter, exploring Conrad's borrowing and reversing of the genre.In the second chapter, the construction of The Other of the race is explored, discussing Conrad's construction as The Other about geography, Africans, Malays, Arabians, Chinese, and one from South American. Apart from his early works involving the construction of Malays as The Other, racial others are generally aphasia, deprived of the right to speak and having to exist only in the discourse of the narrators, who are, without exception, westerners. The construction of the racial others shows best Conrad's dual discourse in the issue of colonialism. On the one hand, he demonstrates the superiority of the westerners over the other races, testifying the right of the westerners to practice colonialist ruling. On the other hand, he reveals to the reader the terrible conditions for the natives under the ruling of colonialists, showing strong sense of criticism towards imperialism.The third chapter is about the construction of nations as The Other, namely the construction of Russians and of Conrad's own race, the Poles. The construction shows his hostility as a Pole to Russia and its ruling class, and the construction of Poles reveals his worry about the obstacles in the way to emerge in the English society, emphasizing the difficulties in language and cultural communication. " Prince Romance " shows that Conrad pinches his hope on the Polish elites for the future of the country. The fourth chapter contributes to the discussion of gender other and personality other, both are discussed in the context of racial others. The construction of gender other is both a inheriting and .reversing of the imperialist romance, with the stereotype construction and breakthrough from the set stereotypes. There are two types of personality other construction, as a helping or as a destructive force. In the former, one personality is in a privileged position to help the other, which, when taking place in a country other than the motherland, is of great help for the westerners to carry on colonialism from one generation to another, revealing the side of colonialist discourse in Conrad. The latter is a questioning to the traditional belief of the western idea on the issue of The Other, in which the more unfamiliar the other to the self, the more dangerous. But the opposite is true in Conrad, the more identical, the more destructive.