Dilemmas Of Conduct And Hybrid Identity In Three Of Joseph Conrad's Novels

This dissertation takes as its subject a major and recurrent theme in Joseph Conrad's novels:that of the hybrid nature of human identity and the degree to which a person's conduct is shaped by his sense of identity and influenced by circumstantial crises that test the strength of his identity.This theme will be examined with reference to three of Joseph Conrad's novels produced over a span of nearly two decades,namely An Outcast of the Islands(1896),Lord Jim(1900)and Victory(1915).Joseph Conrad(1857-1924),a Polish-born novelist,became a British citizen at a time when the United Kingdom held sway over an empire which dominated the world in terms of its territorial presence,its economic and military power and its cultural influence.He was uniquely placed by virtue of his family background and life experience to write about the impact of the imperialist ethos,of its colonialist interests and of its capitalist drive on citizens of the empire at home and abroad.The title,"Dilemmas of Conduct",is a phrase borrowed from Leo Gurko and refers here to the various categories of crises-social,political,moral-which confront certain characters in Conrad's fiction and which precipitate inappropriate,illogical,improper,and in some cases disastrous conduct.The concept of human identity as a complex and fragile hybrid construction under constant tension due to human actions and interactions in situations of moral crisis is developed and explored in Conrad's fictional characters.This dissertation will analyze this concept with regard to the main characters in three of Conrad's novels:Peter Willems in An Outcast of the Islands;the eponymous hero of Lord Jim and finally Axel Heyst in Victory.All three characters have identities which have been shaped or molded by the 19th century British imperialist tradition.They are in a sense its creations or products,one might say its puppets,and as such they are simply not strong enough to face up to the challenges created by the changing "real world" situations they find themselves in.This is their moral dilemma-they are obliged to apply an inherited code of conduct in situations where it is neither appropriate,relevant nor meaningful.They are powerless to act or think in a way which does not conform to that outmoded code of conduct because their sense of identity is inextricably bound up with it.This dissertation differentiates itself from past researches on Conrad in that it adopts a perspective from post-colonialist literary theory but applies it to revealing how the imperialist enterprise influenced the identity of the colonizers rather than that of the colonized.It also chooses Conrad's less studied novels like An Outcast of the Islands and Victory.The three novels under discussion help to understand Conrad's idea of identity over the long span of his literary career.This dissertation argues that the colonial ideology proves to be illegitimate,invalid and self-illusory in the end of the nineteenth century as Great Britain was experiencing its imperial crisis.Despite his ambiguity towards colonialism Conrad proposed a commitment to human solidarity as a code of social conduct and raised the crucial point that Western civilization also paid a price for its colonial enterprise by cutting off its citizens from self-exploration and self-knowledge.With the collapse of the empire and the emergence of highly articulate post-colonialist literary and cultural voices,the issue raised by Conrad may now,not far from a century after his death,be producing real meanings in alternative values and alternative cultural contexts.