H Begree aif PhD. ’5‘: E H mm” 3% EL UH .. . a 1 .. fl. u" q. «5 _ 3,. r ”‘38 Q G n m: 2 F JUSEF’H CONRA- ’8 ATHTUDE S 'v . h .w—‘ . , ~Mv~l c .. s W132 ,. III 9‘Q‘ U Ila-H 0. r1 . I an-.. {L 4.1V mu: m Vin“ :1IV fl“..- . II. ‘1' oID N!- I O I. LII. , “.3 IN." “I...” No. I W. 301d”. D u- ...M. n”. m. J «a. . . . i... 2 an... F: «H 91...»... mm.” a- .. . a. 3,... _... m u .{u ..¢u. . ‘.i- g., Iv. .. 3.... WW mi .3. ms: H. .908 I; .. kl .O‘ . & 9).! . H.121 a: r7. 3... . c! r via-‘9 HUM}: hum...“ a?" can MI . :04. “1.3.“ .45 a CI. 1 , . L ’3 . I I I I I . rub Illilw Illlllllllllln. is...) This is to certify that the thesis entitled THE INFLUENCE or JOSEPH CONRAD'S ATTITUDE TOWARD RACE ON THE DRAMATIC AND THEMATIC ‘ \STRUCTURE or HIS FICTION presented by Thomas Jonathan Hruska has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph.D. degreein English 'Zézyzégggggt E2. Zztfi%ab Major pgof I Date fi'fl'V/ULZ? 7) /7 [5- 0-7639 ’ Q : . t. - _ * “an: u; 3“}; "I, ‘ "1"": w j .‘ L _‘c‘ ‘1 ”a Uszivmsiw man-m" . m W¢m~m v‘ ‘u.. our §.II 0‘ If. -- III. II III !‘ ABSTRACT THE INFLUENCE OF JOSEPH CONRAD'S ATTITUDE TOWARD RACE ON THE DRAMATIC AND THEMATIC STRUCTURE OF HIS FICTION By Thomas Jonathan Hruska Conrad's attitude toward race is based on his belief that all men are born with an inherited racial identity. This conviction, which Conrad shared with most men of his age, profoundly affected both the way Conrad judged him- self and others and the manner in which he deve10ped and evaluated the characters of his fiction. Essentially, Conrad believed that Western EurOpean man was superior because his more deve10ped racial character made him more capable of resisting the horror of an indifferent and chaotic universe. Characters such as Marlow are able to withstand the darkness because they can rely on their in— born moral strength to save them even when mere intelli- gence or physical strength cannot. Others, however, fall into the "abyss" because their racial character is not strong enough to sustain them once they have removed them- selves from the security of their own racial communities. The struggle to save or redeem one's racial identity is one of the dominant recurring themes in Conrad's work. In addition, Conrad's racial attitudes influence the ThOmas Jonathan Hruska dramatic structure of his work because his characters are frequently motivated by instinctive racial loyalties, affinities, differences and barriers. My study of the sources of Conrad's racial attitudes begins with a survey of the racial theories which pre- vailed in EurOpe during the second half of the nineteenth century. This is followed by an analysis of how similar racial concepts were particularly manifested in Conrad's cultural and family milieu, most significantly in his re- lationship with his uncle, Tadeuz Bobrowski. A review of Conrad's letters shows that his racial attitudes are con- sistent with both the dominant beliefs of his age and the special convictions of his uncle. Furthermore, a study of Conrad's non-fictional writing demonstrates that his public statements regarding both his own character and that of various racial groups are consistent with the attitudes toward race evinced in his personal correspon- deuce. In Almayer's Folly and £3 Outcast 3f the Islands, Conrad presents us with fundamentally weak protagonists who perish because their selfish dreams of wealth and glory alienate them from their effete racial identities and render them vulnerable to the forces which eventually destrOy them. Fiercely proud of his white man's superiority, Almayer ignores the fact that his daughter Nina is a half breed who knows that she will never be Thomas Jonathan Hruska accepted in the white world he glorifies. But because of the affinity of their racial characters, Nina and Dain Maroola are drawn to each other as naturally as the creepers cling to the trees. The lovers escape, and Almayer, betrayed and deprived of his dream, descends into the abyss of drugged forgetfulness. When Willems is caught stealing, he wants to die; but Captain Lingard sends him to Sambir where he escapes into his passion for Aissa, a native girl. But in order to have her, Willems must betray Captain Lingard; and afterwards he is filled with revulsion for both himself and Aissa whose savage nature now seems disgustingly alien to him. Confronted by Lingard, Willems attempts to justify himself, but the big Englishman's contempt makes it clear that Willems, like Almayer, is a deracinated man. There is nothing left within him worth saving or destrOying. Although Lord Jim is a much finer artistic accom— plishment than either Almayer's Folly or £2 Outcast 2f the Islands, it has, in thematic terms at least, many things in common with Conrad's earlier novels. Jim, like Conrad's other dreamers, is weakened in a way that is similar to and just as fatal as the process that destrOys lesser men like Almayer and Willems. Jim is not vul- nerable because he is isolated in Patusan but because he is isolated in his dream which, however fine and idealis- tic it may be, alienates him from his own inborn racial Thomas Jonathan Hruska strength and leaves him, like Conrad's earlier protago— nists, deracinated. Yet it is clear that Conrad, like Marlow, wished to believe in Jim as much as he himself believed in his dream. In Spite of his weakness, Jim is worthy of Marlow's admiration and therefore, COnrad seems to imply, of our own. An analysis of Nostromo demonstrates that Conrad's attitude toward race once again powerfully influences the develOpment of character, dramatic action, and thematic meaning. Whether or not we wish to accept the narrator's authority, it is clear that we are expected to share his moral judgments. These judgments are implicitly based on notions of racial differences, barriers and affinities. Of the three central characters, only Charles GOuld, the Englishman, earns both the narrator's sympathy and his reapect; and only he manages to hold onto his sense of racial identity. I have concluded my study with a survey of several of Conrad's novels and short stories which demonstrates that, while attitudes toward race are not always central to his fiction, an awareness of their nature and function can greatly enhance our understanding of many of his works. For instance, an awareness of Conrad's attitude toward race allows us to know what Marlow means when he suggests that his jaurney up the Congo was like traveling backwards in time, how we are eXpected to judge the different racial Thomas Jonathan Hruska types in The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes, and why Heyst perishes and Lingard survives. THE INFLUENCE OF JOSEPH CONRAD'S ATTITUDE TOWARD RACE ON THE DRAMATIC AND THEMATIC STRUCTURE OF HIS FICTION By Thomas JOnathan Hruska AN ABSTRACT OF A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English 1975 This dissertation is dedicated to my Mother, my wife Sally, and my good friend Harold. ii l .~\.l u “no: .1 p: m: l s ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am deeply indebted to Professor Bernard J. Paris, without whose patience, advice, support and understanding, this dissertation would never have been completed. iii .33318I Sitter #33316! Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter One Two Three FOur Five Six Seven TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction The Sources of Conrad's Attitude toward Race Almayer's Folly: The Dream of Racial Superiority .53 Outcast 2f the Islands: Deracination and Betrayal Lord Jim: The Racial Ideal Nostromo: PeOple, Aristocracy and Anglo—Saxon Conclusion BibliOgraphy iv page 22 89 113 139 192 247 301 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION [Conrad] never introduced a character, however subsidiary, without providing that character with ancestry and heredi- tary characteristics, or at least with home surroundings —- always supposing that character had any influence on the inevitability of the story.1 As Ford Madox Ford suggests, the "hereditary characteris- tics" of Conrad's characters often influence the "inevitability" -- that is, the dramatic and thematic structure -- of his work. As I prOpose to show, Conrad believed that an individual's racial inheritance was a key to his moral and intellectual, as well as to his physical nature. Racial identity, which Conrad, like many other men of his age, believed was bi010gically transmitted, is manifested in those aspects of any given character's per- sonality which are "inborn" or "instinctive" rather than the product of environmental conditioning. A careful sur- vey of Conrad's writing makes it evident that racial iden- tities, differences and Conflicts are consistently central to the structure and meaning of his works. Indeed, from the very beginning and throughout the entire canon, the 1Ford Madox Ford commenting on Conrad's fiction in Joseph Conrad: A Personal Remembrance (London, 1924), p. 221. All furthe? quotations from Ford in this chapter are from this work and are followed by page references. n' 0"; L:1|.-fi l 1:: 32 INCH .2326‘ central complications in Conrad's fiction often deveIOp out of conflicts created by racial lOyalties and barriers. The hereditary chracteristics that Conrad provided for his characters work, therefore, to create a kind of dramatic inevitability. Furthermore, Conrad's attitude toward race is vital to a prOper understanding of the thematic structure of his work because it is often the implicit basis for his judgment of his characters' weak— nesses and strengths and of the moral significance of their actions. Conrad's racial attitudes are more dominant in navels with a primitive or exotic setting and a multi-racial set of characters than in those of his stories that take place in a EurOpean country. Racial differences are obviOus, however, even in "The Duel," a story about two different racial types who never go beyond the protective limits of their society. It may be enlightening, therefore, to demonstrate the influence of Conrad's racial attitudes on this short work. "The Duel" is a camic tale abOut two French officers, Lt. D'Hubert of Normandy and Lt. Feraud Of Gascony, who conduct a series of duels during the Napoleonic wars. In the "Author's Note" to A Set 2; Six, Conrad tells the reader that his attempt was to render "the Spirit of the Epoch - never purely militarist in the 10ng clash of arms, youthful, almost childlike in its exaltation of sentiment - naively heroic in its faith" (XVIII, xi).2 "The Duel" is a burlesque of both bourgeois and military society told from a lighthearted but ironic point of view; but more importantly - for our purposes at least - the dramatic action of the story finds its genesis in the conflict of two markedly different racial types. Although both officers are French, D'Hubert is a Norman and representative of Conrad's northern EurOpean man, while Feraud is Conrad's representation of the typical southern Mediterranean man. Conrad describes D'Hubert as "tall with an interesting face and a moustache the color of ripe corn," while Feraud is "short and sturdy with a hooked nose and a thick crOp of black curly hair" (XVIII, 173). Furthermore, Conrad contrasts his characters' per— sonalities as well as their physical appearance. He tells us that while "the little Gascon, who, always sober in his potations, was as th0ugh born int0xicated with the sunshine of his vine-ripening country, the Northman, who could drink hard on occasion . . . was born sober under the watery skies of Picardy" (XVIII, 176; my italics). It is important to note that the author is carefully guiding the reader's attitude toward D'Hubert and Feraud by using physical description as a rhetorical device which provides an external index to his characters' internal 2Throughout this thesis, quotations from Conrad are followed by volume and page references to the Complete Works, Kent edition, 26 vols. (Garden City, N.Y., 1926). Any exceptions are separately noted. a hnmv a..- IA- natures. Tall and blond, with an interesting face, D'Hubert is visibly superior to his short, hook-nosed antagonist whose "crop" of curly black hair stands in negative contrast to the corn-ripened purity of the Norman's moustache. Moreover, this external contrast only serves to introduce a more intrinsic and significant difference. Although he is known to drink heavily, D'Hubert seems to have been born sober, while Feraud, who never drinks to excess, seems to have been born intoxi- cated. What does Conrad mean when he tells us that a charac- ter is born intoxicated or born sober? The only way this can be adequately explained is in terms of inherited characteristics. Born in Normandy, the northern-most province of France, D'Hubert is, in physical appearance, Nordic, while Feraud, who was born in Gascony, a province adjacent to Spain, is Mediterranean. AlthOugh they are both Frenchmen, they represented two very separate EurOpean white races to most ethnolOgists and anthrOpolo- gists of Conrad's age. As late as 1948, we find modern anthrOpolOgists like A. L. Kroeber subdividing the European Caucasians according to hair and eye color as well as cephalic and facial indexes. A series of maps illustrating trait distributions in EurOpe clearly shows that blond, blue-eyed, narrow-headed and long-faced peepie reund.f Cc aiaut t have 5u validi: 01' his were as rather peOple dominate Northern France while dark-featured, round-faced peOple dominate Scuthern France.3 Contemporary anthr0p010gists tend to be cautious about the definition and classification of races, and some have suggested that the word "race" has no scientific validity, but Conrad was born and educated and wrote most of his major works in an era when the laws of genetics were as yet unpublished and anthr0p010gy was normative rather than relative. The theory of evolution in its pOpularized form was most often confused with an upward- develOping chain of progression and anthrOpologists were preoccupied with the classification of races in order to demonstrate this prOgress in man. Many social scientists believed that racial differences were evidence of the different echelons of human develOpment. And, because Western Europe - England especially - had made most of the world its empire, it was commonly believed that EurOpean culture was further develOped than so-called primitive cultures; higher on the evolutionary ladder than the cul- tures and people it ruled. Furthermore, ethn010gists believed that man created his culture rather than being created by it. Western civilization was superior because Western man was superior; primitive man was uncivilized because he had no acquired innate capacity to develOp a 3AnthrOpolOgy: BiolOgy and Race (New York, 1963), pp. 99-106. structured and ordered society. Physical and cultural differences were the most apparent signs of racial dif— ferences, but it was also believed that races were in different states of moral and intellectual development. Most importantly, the norm in all of these cases was Northern EurOpean man: tall, blond, and blue-eyed. The central characters in "The Duel" are stereotypes of the Northern and Southern EurOpean races. Feraud, the Latin, is emotional and passionate, while D'Hubert is proud but restrained and reflective. The entire story is based on an almost natural antipathy between these two men which apparently arises out of innate racial differ- ences. Certainly the ostensible cause of the initial duel is insignificant, so insignificant that neither man will reveal it to his friends: after Feraud has killed a civilian in a duel, D'Hubert is sent to place him under hOuse arrest. Feraud is so enraged at the general's interference in his private affairs that he challenges D'Hubert as the general's representative. D'Hubert is, Conrad tells us, "a man without much imagination," and his swordplay is scientifically efficient. Feraud, however, fights with a "fixity of savage purpose" and a will to destrOy "utterly beyond the inferior faculties of a tiger" (XVIII, 180). Though he loses the first enc0unter, his animosity is undiminished and he threatens a second chal- lenge before his wound is even healed. Had D'Hubert felt a similar single-minded fury, he would have explained the details of Feraud's unwarranted attack on him and ended the matter for good and all. But as a northern type, he is both emotionally detached from H un- such fury and idealistic about comradeship; he is willing to make the position of Lieut. Feraud worse than it was" (XVIII, 191-2). Unfortunately, an official enquiry never occurs, and it is D'Hubert who is badly wounded in the second duel. Now he must keep quiet to avoid seeming to be afraid: although moved by his Colonel's plea, D'Hubert's "northern temperament, senti- mental yet cautiOus and clear—sighted too in its idealis- tic way, checked his impulse to make a clean breast of the whole deadly absurdity" (XVIII, 198). D'Hubert's emotional detachment and clear-sighted practicality, then, seem at this point to be ineffectual against Feraud's southern fury. And so, the duels continue. Feraud is always the challenger, his hot temper re- ignited by every advance D'Hubert makes in the service. His own promotion to captain brings about the third en- counter, for it has made him at last equal in rank to D'Hubert and able to challenge him. The outcome is a draw: neither is able to win but neither will give up. Their reasons for continuing to fight, however, are markedly different: Both men refused to have the combat stOpped, time after time, with what appeared the most iotiv Feta; 8 deadly animosity. The appearance was caused on the part of Captain D'Hubert by a rational desire to be done once for all with this worry; On the part of Captain Feraud by tremendOus exaltation of his pugnaciOus instincts and the incitement of wounded vanity. (XVIII, 204) While D'Hubert is deliberately rational, Feraud fights instinctively and on the basis of his personal vanity. The word "instinct" is prevalent in all of Conrad's writing and it is used consistently to denote an inborn, that is unthinking, reSponse. It is instinctive for Feraud to be vain, emotional, savage and irrational; it is equally instinctive for D'Hubert to be idealistic, rational and unimaginative. Essentially, D'Hubert is motivated by his sense of idealism which is Opposed to Feraud's selfish vanity, but it must be understood that both are in their own way absurd and potentially destruc- tive; for neither man is able to extricate himself from the duel. In fact, both of them are controlled as well as motivated by their inherent natures. Yet D'Hubert is obviously Feraud's moral (as well as physical) superior and the narrator consistently presents his story from a point of view designed to provide sympathy for his northern protagonist. The aftermath of the Russian invasion causes a tem— porary truce. In the retreat from Moscow, both men suffer great hardship tOgether; but they reSpond to their personal suffering in different ways. Feraud, like all of COnrad's egotists, sees nature as a deliberately malevolent force directed solely against himself and his hero Napoleon. "Short, hairy, black faced, with layers of grime and the thick sprOutings of a wiry beard . . . he accused fate of unparalleled perfidy towards the sublime Man of Destiny" (XVIII, 214). Feraud's sense of personal outrage is grossly humorous, but D'Hubert, whose "regularly handsome features were reduced to mere bony lines and fleshless hollows" (XVIII, 214) is almost disinterestedly reflective. Absurdly dressed in a cocked hat, a woman's cape, a sheep- skin coat and cart mats, he suffers the indignity with a "patriotic sadness, not unmingled with some personal con- cern, and quite unlike the unreasoning indignation against men and things nursed by Colonel Feraud" (XVIII, 215). The effect of the retreat is to widen the gulf between them. Feraud's commitment to his emperor becomes fanatical, but D'Hubert begins to question Napoleon's judgment. Feraud perceives this, and his public comment that D'Hubert does not love the emperior has repercussions. Thanks to his reputation, D'Hubert is kept on active service after the restoration; and his influence is enough to save Feraud from execution, though Feraud never knows it. But when Feraud, in forced retirement, sees that D'Hubert has re— ceived a command, he rushes off in fury to issue his last challenge.- By this time Feraud himself has become an image for destrOyed Napoleonic France: .L E. :5 g-b ml 10 The other living wreckage of Napoleonic tempest clustered r0und General Feraud with infinite reapect. He, himself, imagined his SOul to be crushed with grief. He suffered from quickly succeeding impulses to weep, to howl, to bite his fists till blood came, to Spend days on his bed with his head thrust under the pillow; but these arose from sheer ennui, from the anguish of an immense, indescribable, inconceivable boredom. His mental inability to grasp the hOpeless nature of his case as a whole saved him from suicide. (XVIII, 231) Feraud's instincts apparently make him suitable for ferocious action and without war he is a superfluOus man. Moreover, he loses his last duel because of his typically egotistic tendency to reconstruct reality in terms of his own vanity and imagination. But D'Hubert wins the duel at last because his in- stinctive reactions have been deeply affected by his reflective intellect. On his suggestion, their final meeting takes place in a wood, each man firing at will when he sees the other. Realizing that Feraud is an ex- cellent shot, D'Hubert - who is no marksman but had been known as "The Strategist" in earlier days - calculates that he must draw Feraud's fire from the maximum range. Feraud misses with his first shot; but D'Hubert, in an attempt to cover an attack from the rear, lays his pistols down in order to find his pocket mirror. From Feraud's point of view, D'Hubert appears to be lying on his back and he immediately assumes that he has shot him. "'What an ass I was to think I could have missed him . pa. - h it ‘1’. 3. I... ll Turned up his toes! By the god of war, that was a shot!'" (XVIII, 254). Betrayed by his vanity, Feraud becomes in— cautiOus, but D'Hubert cannot take the advantage because he has left his pistols lying on the ground. Instead of picking them up, however, he leaps up suddenly and avoids Feraud's last shot by dashing behind a tree. He now has a shot remaining in both of his pistols while Feraud has none. D'Hubert has won the duel at last. The crucial moment for D'Hubert comes when he realizes that Feraud is approaching from the rear. The instinctive thing would have been to pick up his pistols, but Feraud wOuld have killed him if he had attempted to do so. D'Hubert reSponds quickly and thoughtlessly, and yet his actions are based on the rational and reflective quality of his nature. Conrad eXplains this to the reader in the following manner: The irresistible instinct of an average man . would have been to stCOp for his weapons, exposing himself to the risk of being shot down in that position. Instinct, of course, is irreflective. It is its very definition. But it.E§1_ be an inquiry worth pursuing whether in reflective mankind the mechanical promptings of instinct are not affected by the customary mode of thOught. In his young days, Armand DTHubert, the reflective promising officer, had emitted the Opinion that in warfare one should 'never cast back on the lines of a mistake.‘ This idea defended and develOped in many discussions, had settled into one of the stock notions of his brain, had become a part of his mental individuality. Whether it had gone so inconceivably deep as to affect the dictates of his instinct, or 12 simply because, as he himself declared afterwards, he was "too scared to remember the confounded pistols," the fact is that General D'Hubert never attempted to st00p for them. (XVIII, 255-56; italics mine) D‘Hubert wins the duel, Conrad suggests, because his re- flective habits have influenced his instinctive reaponses. Feraud, who is consistently compared to animals, loses because he is enslaved by the patterns that D'Hubert has been able to break. But this is more than a simple conflict between rational and irrational man. The source of D'Hubert's strength lies in an inborn capacity for reason that Feraud's savage nature - born intoxicated - lacks. He is born a member of "reflective mankind" just as Feraud's SOuthern nature is only "capable of a certain amOunt of astuteness" (XVIII, 195). To this extent, "The Duel” centers on a basic human difference that is consistently stressed in Conrad's work.4 Primitive or savage man is often proud, egotistical, imaginative and physically 4When D'Hubert tells his fiancee's uncle of the impending duel, the Chevalier suggests that the essential difference between Feraud and D'Hubert is one of class: D'Hubert can simply refuse to meet anyone so far beneath him socially. D'Hubert is shocked at the suggestion, because his egalitarianism is genuine. The passage is valuable for examining and dismissing the idea that it is simply class differences, not racial differences, that divide the two men and foster the enmity between them. Cf. XVIII, 244-5. A: In t .\H «I .6. In t FA .14 J a .c \I\ l3 powerful. But he is essentially solipsistic. He sees his accomplishments as evidence of his superiority and cunning, but he sees his failures and misfortunes as the product of fate or of nature somehow solely directed against himself. Rational or reflective mankind, of whom D'Hubert is representative, is characterized by his sense of communal responsibility and his lack of imagination. He is more often motivated not by personal egotism, but by a seemingly selfless fidelity to the social ideal.5 "The Duel,” then, illustrates how Conrad's attitude toward racial identity, differences and conflict influences his develOpment of character, dramatic action and theme. The characters of both D'Hubert and Feraud are constructed in terms of their racial origin while the central dramatic action (the duel itself) is the automatic product of the natural antipathy between the two major characters which is, in Conrad's work, the inevitable result of racial dif- ferences. Furthermore, D'Hubert's Northern birth and rational nature make him Conrad's protagonist. The story itself is largely centered on him and the central conflict is resolved in such a way as to present him as the moral as well as physical victor. He does not, after all, shoot Feraud. Instead he demands that he remain perpetually "at his disposal," which has the effect of concluding the 5The danger comes when he romanticizes and sentimen- talizes the communal ideal. l4 duel. Feraud's southern nature, however, makes him an in- ferior and even absurd antagonist. As in almost all of his works, Conrad lays stress not only on racial or national origin, but upon the particular inheritance that each racial origin denotes. It is on these inherent dif— ferences in men that Conrad bases his fundamental view of human strength and weakness; for as I have suggested, to Conrad the finest things in man are not the surface quali- ties acquired from social influences and pressures, but the inborn, unthinking strength, that "hidden something, that gift of good or evil that makes racial difference, that shapes the fate of nations" ("YOuth," XVI, 28-9). Some circumstances are particularly likely to call upon a man's inborn strength, or reveal the lack of it. The Conradian protagonist is frequently a man who either removes himself or is separated from the security of his racial surrOundings and is thereby rendered vulnerable to the forces of nature which he must resist in order to sur- vive. The source of man's ability to resist the darkness, Conrad informs us, resides not in his physical or intel— lectual capacities, but in his "inborn strength" or his unthinking "instinct of caurage." For Conrad, this inner power of resistance not only determines our capacity to survive in the midst of the darkness and the horror; it also defines our moral identity. And it is this moral strength, which to Conrad is Synonymous with inherited 15 racial identity, that is so often questioned and tested in his fiction. Some men, like Marlow, McWhirr and Captain Lingard, are able to resist the darkness while others, like Almayer, Willems and Dec0ud, discover only a hollow- ness within themselves. In order to understand this aspect of Conrad's work, it is necessary to understand his atti— tude toward race;6 for only in this way can we fully see why some men survive the darkness while others perish in the depths of the abyss. Many of Conrad's protagonists are dreamers who are somehow out of touch with their own racial identity and who either disregard or are ignorant of the significance of racial barriers and differences. They believe that they can survive beyond the perimeter of their own racial 6A recent critic has discussed Conrad's attitude toward colonialism, but with the exception of this work and two early and relatively brief theses on "The Depiction of National Characteristics" and "Racial and National Types" and another on "The Treatment of Race Prejudice," the sub- ject of race in Conrad's work has been essentially ignored, and when it has been dealt with, it has been largely mis— understood. Cf. Robert Francis Lee, "Conrad's Colonial- ism," Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Minnesota, 1962; R. P. Eames, "The Depiction of National Characteristics in the Novels of Joseph Conrad," M.A. thesis, Wesleyan Univ., 1938; Rupert Esmon Clark, "Racial and National Types in the Works of Joseph Conrad," M.A. thesis, Univ. of Texas, 1936; and Kenneth Wendell Clarke, "The Treatment of Race Prejudice in Joseph Conrad," M.A. thesis, State College of Washington at Pullman, 1949. 16 community, but as Conrad tells us in "An Outpost of PrOgress," Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings. The courage, the composure, the confidence; the emotions and principles; every great and every insignificant thought belongs not to the individual but to the crowd: to the crowd that believes blindly in the irresistible force of its institu- tions and of its morals, in the power of its police and of its Opinion. But the Contact with pure unmitigated savagery, with primitive nature and primitive man, brings sudden and profOund trouble into the heart. (VIII, 89) To Conrad, the community, which is itself the product of the collective racial conscience, provides each of us with both security and identity. When we remove ourselves from its protection, therefore, we become vulnerable to the forces of "unmitigated savagery." Conrad makes his most eXplicit statement regarding the significance of racial identity and barriers in An Outcast gf the Islands. At the beginning of Chapter Four of Part III, he tells us that: Consciously or unconsciously, men are proud of their firmness, steadfastness of purpose, directness of aim. They go straight towards their desire, to the acc0mplishment of virtue-—sometimes of crime--in the uplifting persuasion of their firmness. They walk the road of life, the road fenced in by their tastes, prejudices, disdains or enthusiasms, 17 generally honest, invariably stupid, and are proud of never losing their way. If they do stOp, it is to look for a moment over the hedges that make them safe, to look at the misty valleys, at the distant peaks, at cliffs and morasses, at the dark forests and the hazy plains where other human beings grOpe their days pain- fully away, stumbling over the bones of the wise, over the unburied remains of their predecessors who died alone, in gloom or in sunshine, halfway frOm any- where. The man of purpose does not understand, and goes on, full of contempt. He never loses his way. He knows where he is going and what he wants. Travelling on, he achieves great length without any breadth, and battered, besmirched, and weary, he tOuches the goal at last; he grasps the reward of his perseverance, of his virtue, of his healthy Optimism: an untruthful tombstone Over a dark and soon forgotten grave. (XIV, 197) The typical Conradian protagonist is not a "man of pur- pose"; he has looked over ”the hedges" and gone beyond them. But from Conrad's point of view the limits of the universe are strictly defined by those we know. There is nothing for us outside the babble of praise and blame on familiar lips, and beyond our last acquaintance there lies only a vast chaos; a chaos of laughter and tears which concerns us not; laughter and tears unpleasant, wicked, morbid, contemptible-- because heard imperfectly by ears rebel— lious to strange sOunds. (XIV, 198) The fence that keeps most men on the road of life is clearly a metaphor for the barriers that separate the different races. For Conrad, man realizes and sustains his identity only within his society; and social identity 18 is necessarily founded upon racial identity. But the focus of his work is most often on the isolated man who, separated from his racial society, must resist the forces of nature with his own inborn strength. It is this test which evokes the most vital question in his fiction. The men of purpose who remain within the community never lose touch with their identity because it is never threatened; the men of primitive races may be treated with ironic con- tempt, but Conrad never suggests that they are the subject of any seriOus moral judgment. The men who go beyond the hedges, however, are troubled by their contact "with primitive nature and primitive man"; they are troubled because they find their sense of morality, their concept of reality7 and their own sense of identity are weakened-- and often destrOyed--when they cross racial barriers and separate themselves from their own kind. The question that Conrad repeatedly asks is: why are some men hollow, 7It should be noted that Conrad does not insist that reality in any absolute sense of the term is apprehended by communal man. Men of purpose are safe because the rest of the community shares in and supports their illusions and calls them reality. In the end, there is no salvation in Conrad's universe because our only reward is ”an untruthful tombstone Over a dark and soon forgotten grave." From this perspective, western EurOpeans--and especially the English-—are racially superior because they have inherited an instinctive-—as Opposed to a consciOusly acquired--courage and a sense of selfless responsibility. Because of this, they are able to resist--however temporarily--the forces of darkness. l9 and what is the nature of the inborn strength, the instinct of courage, that saves Others? The theme of the isolated man who struggles to pre- serve his identity in the midst of an alien and hostile environment has been discussed by many students of Conrad's work, but it has not been fully understood. In part at least, this may be because attitudes toward race are now often confused with racism, and many Conradians would naturally resist the notion that Conrad was a racist.8 He was not; nor is racism itself—-e3pecially in its more contemporary meaning--0f any essential signifi— cance in my study of his work. My basic purpose is to define Conrad's attitude toward race and to show that this attitude often influenced the mimetic patterns and recurrent themes of his fiction. The sources of Conrad's racial attitudes are, however, extra-literary in nature, and it is therefore necessary to begin by reviewing the racial theories which prevailed in EurOpe during the seCOnd half of the nineteenth century. Next, I will demonstrate how these racial concepts were particularly manifested in Conrad's own cultural and family milieu; most significantly in the relationship which develOped between Conrad and his uncle, Tadeuz Bobrowski. In addition, Conrad's private 8Jerry Allen, for instance, asserts that Conrad looked "upon mankind not as nationals or races but as peOple, simply." The Sea Years sf Joseph Conrad (New York, 1965), p. ix. 20 correspondence and his non-fictional writings must be studied because these documents provide us with valuable insights to Conrad's Own racial attitudes and the effect of these attitudes not only upon his judgment of Others but also upon his concept of his own identity. Once I have defined Conrad's personal attitude toward race, I will show how this same attitude is mani- fested in his fiction. I will begin my study with an analysis of Almayer's Folly and An Outcast 2: the Islands. While neither of these novels may be considered major works of art, they are valuable texts because Conrad's racial attitudes are most apparent in his early fiction. After I have shown how racial attitudes influence the dramatic and thematic structure of Conrad's first two novels, I will demonstrate how these same or similar atti- tudes are evinced in a more subtle but often significant manner in two of his major works: Lord Jim and Nostromo. There are, of course, limitations to my thesis. An understanding of Conrad's attitude toward race is important, but it will not explain everything there is to know abOut his fiction. Because of this, I have not chosen to attempt a detailed analysis of Heart 2f Darkness even thOugh I consider it one of Conrad's finest artistic accomplishments. In addition, I do not discuss at great length any of Conrad's later fiction such as Under Western Eyes or Victory, although an understanding of Conrad's 21 racial attitudes Often provides interesting and valuable insights into these works. I will conclude my study, therefore, with a survey of Conrad's fiction which will demonstrate how certain aspects of many of his works may be better understood by viewing them within the context of his attitude toward race. CHAPTER TWO THE SOURCES OF CONRAD'S ATTITUDE TOWARD RACE In order to understand Conrad's attitude toward race, we must first study the probable saurces of that attitude. Generally speaking, these sOurces can be divided into two categories: those which are the product of the age in which he lived and those which are peculiar to Conrad's individual background, family history and education. I will begin my discussion Of the origins Of Conrad's racial attitudes by briefly reviewing the emergence of nineteenth century racial theories and the extent to which these theories were influenced by scientific develOpments, eSpecially the theory of evolution. Next, I will show how Conrad's family background, most notably his relationship with his uncle Tadeuz Bobrowski, influenced Conrad's per- sonal attitudes toward race. An analysis of Conrad's letters will demonstrate that his racial attitudes are consistent with both the dominant beliefs of his age and the special convictions of his uncle. I will also show how these attitudes are manifested in Conrad's description of his own personality and in his notions abOut the Polish national identity as well as in his characterization of other races. A study of his non-fictional writing, especially his autobiOgraphical works and political essays, will show that his public statements regarding 22 23 both his own character and that of various racial grOups are consistent with the attitudes toward race evinced in his personal correSpondence. Finally, I will suggest how Conrad's attitude toward race influenced his view of man's social condition and the ability of the human com— munity to withstand the forces of an amoral, inhuman universe. I Evolutionary theory was the most important intellec— tual influence upon nineteenth century attitudes toward race. The average well-educated man Often lacked the scientific background necessary to follow Darwin's argu- ment, but that did not inhibit many peOple from reaponding to the doctrine of evolution and its social implications. The most important concepts that were generally accepted were these: western EurOpean man was superior to the inhabitants of other continents because he was at a later, that is "higher" stage of evolution; he apparently got there by his own efforts; and his descendants inherited his superior intelligence, culture, and morality. These assumptions about race and evolution, and abOut western EurOpeans in particular, develOped naturally from the way Darwin's theory of evolution was caught up by social philoSOphers, anthrOpologists, and ethnologists, who ex- tended Darwinian theory into their own fields of study. 24 One of the central issues that arose from the con- troversy over evolution was the relationship between man and the rest of the animal kingdom and the relationship between the various races of mankind. Man had for cen- turies, of course, reCOgnized the apparent similarities between himself and some of the higher primates, eSpecial- 1y the apes. Interestingly enough, much of the informa— tion concerning such animals came from travelers and explorers who published aCCOunts of their journeys.1 Travel books described geOgraphy, climate, plant and animal life, but explorers often spent a good deal of time discussing the various types of primitive peOple they encountered during their journeys. At a time when Western EurOpe was building empires on every continent and when both the scientific and industrial revolutions were fluorishing, it was impossible for most peOple to believe that savage and ignorant natives were members of the same human species as the modern white EurOpeans. It was easier to compare them to chimpanzees and orangutangs. Eighteenth century anthrOpolOgists had often argued in favor of a polygenetic theory of human creatiOn: that is, that the different races had separate origins. Darwin's theory discredited the polygenetic theory, but 1It should be remembered that Conrad was, from an early age, deeply interested in travel literature. 25 it did not destrOy the develOping interest in racial differences and the Speculation over the superiority of one race over another. In his Vestiges of Creation (1843), Robert Chambers had argued that the variOus races of man represent the prOgression of human develOpment. Chambers' His idea of evolution as applied to race was exactly what millions of peOple w0uld come to believe when evolution became respectable. Chambers argues that man began as a Negro, passed through Malay, Indian and Mongolian phases and finally emerged as a Caucasian. "The leading characters [that is, the strongest, most intelligent members] . . . of the various races of mankind are simply representations of the develOpment of the highest or Caucasian type."2 racial theory reflects a belief in an upward develOpment similar to the theory of the Great Chain of Being. Darwin did not stress racial theory, but in Descent 3E Man he suggested that there were marked differences in the inherited mental faculties between the members of the dif- ferent existing races. This point of view unconsciously reflects the Old Scale of Nature and the tacit assumption that the races of today in some manner represent a sequence in time, a series of living fossils, with western EurOpean man standing biolOgically at the head of the procession.3 2Thomas F. Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea i America (1963; rpt. New York, Schocken, 1965): p. 68. 3Loren Eiseley, Darwin's Century (1958; rpt. Garden City, N.Y., Anchor Books, 1961), p. 288. 26 The concept that the variOus races illustrated the develOpment of human evolution stimulated a movement which was already the chief interest of many nineteenth- century anthrOpolOgists - the measurement of race differences. If the races repre— sented different stages of evolution, then it was important to measure their differences. . . . The nineteenth century was a period of exhaustive and - as it turned Out - futile search for criteria to define and describe race differences.4 Lacking a knowledge of genetics, students Of race turned to pseudo-sciences such as phrenolOgy and craniolOgy in hOpes of offering physical evidence of the superiority of the white Caucasian over what they considered to be the inferior races. By measuring the length of the skull and dividing it by the width, a craniolOgist could compute what was called a cephalic index - and the longer and narrower the skull, the more advanced the human being. By measuring a group of skulls from one race and comparing the average cephalic index with that of another race, one could supposedly ascertain how far along the evolutionary ladder a particular race might be. There is, of COurse, no evidence to pr0ve that long and narrow-headed peOple are more intellectually gifted than round-headed peOple; but craniolOgy, like other racial studies, was based on the fundamental conviction that northern EurOpean man was 4Gossett, pp. 68-69. 27 the culmination of racial develOpment; and northern EurOpeans - or Nordics - had comparatively long narrow heads. The Nordic or Aryan racial myth existed in a variety of forms which were supported with variOus philOSOphical and scientific arguments. Latin races were often con- sidered to be decadent. Arthur de Gobineau, the author of Essay on the Inequality 2f Races and, according to Jacques Barzun, the most brilliant of the French racial theorists, divided mankind into three separate races: white, yellow and black. Each race has its own inherent characteristics. Barzun eXplains Gobineau's race theory in the following manner: It boils down to three ideas: Special race-characteristics, blood-mixture and decadence. . . . To the [whites] he ascribes all the noble qualities of man— hood, leadership, energy, superiority. The yellow races have stability and fertility. The black are endowed with sensuality and the artistic impulse. At this point Gobineau's scheme shows a novel feature which is unique in race-theorizing. It is only when two races mix, he says, that civilization occurs. Art and govern- ment are the signs of civilization and no single race can produce these by itself. But civilization leads to more and more mixing of "inferior blood" with that of the ruling caste, so that the "great race" is inevitably bastardized and decadence follows . . . . For him - and this is the result of Aryan philolOgy in the manner of Prichard or Max Muller - the primitive Aryas, who were the prOgenitorS of the great white race, have left very few pure Specimens 28 in our midst. What happened to the great majority was contamination by yellow and Negro blood. The Semites are Negroid and the Semites have infected the whole Mediterranean basin with their "nigridity." That is why the so—called Latin nations - France, Italy, Spain, Portugal — are a decadent, slavish, and worthless stock .Racially, says Gobineau, France has only a few Aryan Nordics left; the rest are a Gallo-Roman mob whose chief instinct is envy and revolution, and whose highest taste in politics or in art is the circus.5 While Gobineau stresses the importance of racial mixture, he also warns against the mongrelization which is pro- duced by over-breeding with lower races. Like most racial theorists, Gobineau uses physical signs such as hair and eye color to define his racial types, but more importantly, his theory of race is based on a concept of class differences. Nations are pOpulated by more than one race, and class structure is the natural result of the inequality of races. It is the hereditary inferiority of peasants that makes them peasants, for they are a race apart from the dominant, civilizing aristocracy. It is not until a nation's peOple are so mongrelized as to erase racial differences that the false concept of human equality arises.6 As Ruth Benedict points out, "racism 5Jacques Barzun, Race: A Study in Superstition (1937; rev. ed. New York, Harper, 1965), pp. 54-56. 6Arthur de Gobineau, The Inequality 23 Human Races, trans. Oscar Levy (1915; rpt. New York, Fertig, 1967), pp. 36-38 and 97-104 eSpecially. 29 was first formulated in conflicts between classes. It was directed by the aristocrats against the pOpulace.”7 And as we shall see, the work of scientific evolutionists tended to support this idea. The Aryan or upper Classes represent racially superior prOple, the leading members of a race as Chambers defines them, who are - thrOugh effort - evolving upward. The lower classes represent racially decadent peOple who have been rendered inferior thrOugh breeding with Semitic races. The inferiority of the yellow, black and brown races was simply taken for granted. Gobineau, for instance, describes the "white peOples" who, as Opposed to the animal-like Negro or the apathetic oriental, are gifted with reflective energy, or rather with an energetic intelligence. They have a feeling for utility, but in a sense far wider and higher, more courageous and ideal, than the yellow races; a perseverance that takes acc0unt of obstacles and ultimately finds a means of overcoming them; a greater physical power, an extraordinary instinct for order, not merely as a guarantee of peace and tranquillity, but as an indiSpensable means of self- preservation. At the same time, they have a remarkable, and even extreme, love of liberty.8 7Race: Science and Politics (New York, Viking, 1959), p. 112. 8Inequality 2f Human Races, p. 207. 30 The major thrust of nineteenth century racial theory was focused on the ostensible differences between the variOus EurOpean peOpleS. The word "race" was often used loosely to designate national, ethnic, cultural or family groups. English racial theorists such as Robert Knox, for instance, celebrated the virtues of the Anglo-Saxon instead of the Teutonic or Nordic peOples. In his Races of Men Knox describes the Anglo-Saxon in terms of his physical, intellectual, and moral character. The Anglo- Saxon, he argued, was tall, fair and athletic, native to the EurOpean continent. ThOughtful, plodding, industrious beyond all other races, a lover of labour for labour's sake; he cares not its amOunt if it be but profitable; large handed, mechanical, a lover Of order, of punctu- ality in business, of neatness and cleanliness. In these qualities no race approaches him; the wealthy with him is the sole reSpectable, the reSpectable the SOle good; the word comfort is never out of his mOuth . . . . NO race perhaps exceeds them in an abstract sense of justice, and a love of fair play; but only to Saxons . Today and tomorrow is *aTT—THE'Saxon looks to; yesterday he cares not for; it is past and gone. He is the man of circumstances, of expediency withOut method; "try all things, but do not theorize.” Give me "constants."9 One needs only to recall Conrad's portrait of Singleton or Captain Lingard to note the similarity between Knox's 9"Reading no. 14," in LOuis L. Snyder, The Idea of Racialism (Princeton, N.J., D. Van Nostrand, 1962), p. 137. 31 description of the essential Anglo-Saxon and Conrad's description of the typical English seaman. In both cases the northerner is characterized by his great physical strength, his fair complexion and blue eyes and--more significantly--by a stolid fidelity to order and a preference for concrete - "constant” - reality as Opposed to any abstract theory. The higher "reflective" intelli- gence of the EurOpean white (the quintessence of which is to be discovered only in the true Aryan strain, whether it be Saxon, Celtic or Teutonic) is pragmatically oriented. His love of order, justice, and freedOm is not acquired from culturally indoctrinated or even well thought Out theories, but is closer to an inborn moral capacity. The most consistent aSpect of nineteenth century race theory was the belief in the fundamental superiority of Northern EurOpean man. As Eiseley points Out, Sir Francis Bacon was the first to prOpose the superiority of northern man because of his greater endurance and ruggedness. Darwin, Eiseley continues, used the same basic idea when he argued the persistent "dominance of northern faunas over southern ones."10 By the late nineteenth century this idea had become one of the central axioms of social Darwinism and evolutionary anthrOpolOgy. In the United States, John R. Commons argued that "only northern 10Eiseley, p. 10. 32 EurOpeans were capable of democracy, because they alone had the basic and innate qualities of intelligence, man- liness and COOperation."11 Therefore, Commons argued, democracy is a viable form of government with northern EurOpeans, but unfeasible with Mediterraneans and eastern EurOpeans who had been "'reduced to the qualities similar to those of an inferior race that favor deSpotism and oligarchy rather than democracy."'12 Many racial theories stressed the importance of climate in relationship to racial develOpment. Northern man had supposedly acquired his superiority by means of the effort he was forced to make in order to survive in the colder and more rugged northern climate. In fact, northern men could be differentiated from the lesser races by the extent of his dominance over his environment. At the same time, however, it was theorized that each race had a Special adaptability to a given climate. That is, certain climates allowed a race to flOuriSh while others produced decay. Knox, for example, believed that the true Saxon could never continue to exist in Australia or North America. Climate COuld not permanently alter a race, Knox 13 argued, but it might destrOy one. Once again, we must 11Gossett, p. 173. 12Quoted in Gossett, p. 173. 13Snyder, p. 137. C0 33 compare this principle of racial theory with a persistent theme in Conrad's work. Many of Conrad's central charac- ters are not only isolated from their own Society, they are also cast into an alien world where their environment threatens to destrOy them - and often does. Nineteenth century anthrOpolOgy was deeply influenced by Darwin's work and many of its fundamental precepts were founded on evolutionary concepts. For the most part, ethnOlOgists accepted the idea that the study of the variOus races of mankind demonstrated the prOgress from Simple to complex, from infancy to adulthood. Ethnolo- gists, however, were not so much interested in the origin of races as they were in comparing primitive and civilized cultures. PrOgressive ethnOIOgists, such as Sir John Lubbock, argued that primitive races and cultures were the living key to the history of modern civilization. The prOgressioniStS believed that by Studying primitive races they COuld determine what the early history of EurOpean man was like. In addition, the various races and cultures wOuld show the step-by-Step prOgressive develOpment - hence the evolution - of man. This thesis, which was supported by Herbert Spencer and Others, held that each race must move from infancy or savagery to adulthood or civilization. This develOpment is manifested through social and political as well as thrOugh artistic, intellectual, linguistic, religiOuS, 34 phiIOSOphical, moral and material prOgress. In Conrad's age, most EurOpean intellectuals believed that western civilization was destined to rule the world; and ethno— lOgical theory, like the earlier racial theories of Gobineau or Chambers, was implicitly based on the superiority of western culture and western man. In his article for the EncyclOpedia Britannica, Elie Reclus sug- gested that the inferior races were doomed. Western civi- lization, he believed, was ”about to take possession of the world, - now that representatives of our culture in- vade in so many places the soil occupied by less advanced communities."14 Unlike the earlier race theorists, Reclus seems un- concerned with the possibilities of racial degeneration or decay, but he does conclude his article with a warning note. There is no doubt, he assures us, of the material and intellectual develOpment of man, but the question of moral prOgress is a more difficult One. Everything tends to prove that mankind, far from being born with a vivid sense of right and wrong, as the common doc- trine would have it, had to evolve a moral sense by a long process. Through ages man must have collected sensations of a peculiar sort which at first were slightly perceptible, and which, when 14"EthnOgraphy and EthnolOgy, EncyCIOpedia Britannica, 9th ed. (New York, Werner, 1900), VIII, p. 624. 35 accumulated, became that positive per— ception, the most to be cared for of our inherited abilities.15 Like the racial theorists and like many of the scientific evolutionists, the ethnolOgists believed that EurOpean man owed his superiority to inherited characteristics. Moral as well as physical and intellectual achievement was biolOgically transmitted (through "the blood") from one generation to another with each succeeding generation achieving a bit more than its predecessor and subsequently passing this acquired improvement on to their prOgeny. Studying primitive man was like looking backward — and downward - at Our own past and at the upward journey we have made through the ages. Yet there is something tenuous, even fragile, about this supposed achievement. The moral sense which has been slowly develOped over the ages is not as strong as the physical or intellectual powers of man. It may falter and, according to Relus and others, even be destrOyed. Thus ethnology may be considered as the science which builds up the history Of material and intellectual prOgress, which retraces the evolution of that attribute, preciOus and delicate, of which Dr. Maudsley has finely said, "Morality, the last acquired faculty 15"Ethn0graphy," p. 625. 36 of man, is the first which he is liable to lose."1 Isolated, surrOunded by hostile men in an alien environ— ment, characters like Willems and Kurtz discover that something has been destrOyed within themselves; something precious, withOut which they seem unable to survive. The study of man during most of the nineteenth cen- tury was essentially focused on defining his intrinsic nature and determining the process by means of which the variOus races of man develOped character. AnthrOpolOgical and ethnOIOgical studies in the second half of the century Often stressed racial differences because it was believed that racial difference was the key to cultural difference. That is, they assumed that culture was the external manifestation of the internal - innate - nature of a given race rather than the vital environment which produced the cultural man. The community, therefore, was much more than a political conglomerate of peOple living under a given body of rules. The community found its integrity - its viability - in the innate racial character of the peOple that made it up. Furthermore, most social scientists accounted for the difference between savage and civilized man by attributing it to acquired characteristics, the dominant 16"EthnOgraphy," p. 625. min ex; w 1:] [e ”(9, 37 evolutionary theory of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Both Erasmus Darwin and Lamark were expOnents of this theory, which Loren Eiseley defines in the following manner: As the world alters, as geOgraphic and climatic areas change, new influences are br0ught to bear upon plant and animal life. In the course of long ages transformations in this life occur. These alterations are the product of use, of the effort which the animal makes to employ those parts which are most serviceable to it under the new conditions. As time passes related species may differentiate further and further from each other and these changes will be retained thrOugh heredity. PhysiOIOgical need will promote the formation of new organs or alteration of old ones. Disuse, on the contrary, will promote their 1033.17 In terms of Our own study of Conrad's attitude toward race, the most significant aspect of Lamark's theory is the stress that is placed on the importance of effort on the part Of the animal in order to reSpond to his environ- ment and the belief that acquired characteristics may be inherited--that is, that the change which is accomplished through effort is biologically transmitted. Furthermore, as Eiseley points out, while both Lamark and Erasmus Darwin believed that effort or volition was unconsciOus, the theory was often misinterpreted to fit a more romantic view of life: "that by constant consciOus wishing an 17Darwin's Century, p. 49. 38 organism secured the organ or bodily modification it desired."18 The earlier forms of ev01utiOnary theory were closely related to the idea of the Chain of Being. In each case, life reaches upward in a prOgressive develOpment toward some implicit ideal. We have, therefore, a normative con- cept of evolution. Each organism finds its place in the order of things in terms of its proximity to ultimate per- fection. In the earlier Christian theolOgy, this perfec— tion was God; in the increasingly secular world of the nineteenth century it was man and usually Western EurOpean man. In contrast to Lamark, Darwin argued that change was not the product of volition, but of chance mutations which were naturally selected because they were conducive to survival. The weakness in Darwin's theory was that he could not eXplain how the variations produced thrOugh natural selection were inherited by subsequent genera- tions. Why is it, detractors from his theory asked, that the abnormal variation became the dominant strain? WOuld not most members of a given Species remain stable and therefore dominant? Mendel's work in genetics COuld have dealt with these questions by Showing that the laws of heredity are based on genetic units, so that new mutations 18Darwin's Century, p. 51. ramain cor Unfortunat scientific century. and he was Original p in essenti. theorizing use in res; °Tganism's '0 insure a Damn ?1iced him tro112d by ””31 Phil find a new relying on my on him 30th his en Spelter 310 lith Progre SoCial was superio \ 19M 2 OD \1 39 remain constant and are transmitted without dilution. Unfortunately, however, Mendel's work was ignored by the scientific community until the beginning of the twentieth century. Darwin had no satisfactory answer to his critics 19 to revise his and he was forced, as Eiseley points Out, original position on natural selection and fall back on an essentially Lamarkian eXplanation of heredity, by theorizing that characteristics which are acquired through use in reSpOnse to changing envirOnment will modify the organism's reproductive cells, and may occur widely enOugh to insure alteration of a Species.20 Darwin forced man to see himself as an animal and placed him in a largely mechanical world where he was con— trolled by the forces of heredity and environment. But social philOSOphers, such as Herbert Spencer, were able to find a new Optimism in this view of man. Instead of relying on God and universal order, they argued, man must rely on himself and on social order, thereby controlling both his environment and his destiny. Evolution, which Spencer along with most of his age continued to confuse with progress, became the new ladder of secular perfection. Social scientists assumed that western EurOpean man was superior to and more civilized than the yellow, brown 19Darwin's Century, pp. 215-217. 20Darwin's Century, p. 225. "V '1 (7C) ,3; 1C 40 or black man because he had more inherited experience, more acquired ability to create his society and live within it than did the lower races whose lack of intel- lectual and——more importantly——moral develOpment was reflected in their primitive social and political condi- tion. Man's institutions, then, were no more than a reflection of his own intrinsic develOpment, an external gauge of his racial character and his place on the human ladder of perfection.21 In addition, the Aryan or Nordic myth which was first put forth by the eighteenth century philolOgists continued to have a good deal of credence in Conrad's age. Nordics - also Teutons or Anglo-Saxons - were heralded as the superior race that promised to climb to the highest rung on the ladder of prOgressive evolutionary achievement. And more often than not, it was England that was cele- brated as the homeland of the true Anglo—Saxon, or as COunt Gobineau puts it, the only nation that has ever been truly civilized.22 The period between 1860 and 1900 witnessed a tre- mendOus controversy over the meaning of race. EmplOying 21Gobineau defined civilization "not as an event, but an assemblage of events and ideas, a state in which a human society subsists, an environment with which it has managed to surrOund itself, which is created by it, emanates from it, and in turn reacts on it." (Inequality 2f Human Races, p. 77; author's italics.) 22Inequality_o__f_ Human Races, p. 81. 41 a variety of methods and categories, scientists, social theorists and philOSOphers as well as pseudo—scientists, racists and mere chauvinists investigated and often argued the superiority of Anglo—Saxon, Teutonic, Nordic or Celtic man over the supposedly lesser develOped, inferior races. This interest in racial identity and differences was shared by most EurOpean men of letters and many nineteenth century novelists such as George Eliot were given, as Ford Madox Ford might put it, to describing their characters and their problems in terms of their ancestral and racial origins.23 This tendency was especially common in the English novel. Kipling, for instance, believed that the strength of England lay not in its civilization but in its inherited racial instincts. Others, including many of Conrad's friends and contemporaries, were influenced by the arguments concerning Darwinism, heredity and race; and 23Conrad's attitude toward race is remarkably similar to that Of George Eliot, who also believed in the inheri- tance of acquired characteristics and whose moral and social philOSOphy is largely founded on the conviction-— which She Shared with others like Spencer, Darwin and Lewes --that man's moral capacities and impulses "are partly innate and partly acquired; partly the result of the organic evolution of the race and the Super—organic evolu- tion of society, and partly the result of the individual's experience. The individual's experience, moreover, is determined not only by external stimuli, but also by his inherited psychic organization which reSponds to these Stimuli in accordance with its innate laws." (Bernard J. Paris, Experiments in Life [Detroit, Wayne State U.P., 1965], p. 71.) For—E detailed analysis of Eliot's racial attitudes and their influence upon her writings, the third chapter of Experiments in Life, titled "The Moral Order," is especially relevant:__ there is share thi I shall c' race was any nOve: C03 {CECEDI Understa q iEgO:tan IELory 42 there is no reason to suppose that Conrad himself did not share this interest. On the contrary, for reasons which I Shall delineate, Conrad's interest in the meaning of race was both more complex and more intense than that of any novelist of his age. II Conrad's cOncept of race and the influence of that concept on his fiction must be understood not only by understanding the convictions of his age, but more importantly by considering the unique aspects of his family and national background. As a Pole, Conrad was born in a country which many governments claimed did not exist. Arrested for revolutionary activity against the Russian government, Conrad's parents were exiled to Siberia while he was still a small child. His mother died when he was seven and for the next few years his only close companion was his father, who died in 1869 when Conrad was eleven. As numerous biOgraphers have pointed Out, Conrad's early years were filled with Solitude, ill- ness and death. After his wife's death, Apollo Korzeniowski seems to have lost his will to live and he Spent much of his time contemplating his own death or brooding over his wife's memory. Baines describes Conrad's life with his father as 43 "unbearably Oppressive."24 It is easy, therefore, to understand why at an early age, the bOy develOped an interest in novels and tales of adventure, exploration and romance: they were his means of escape from a grim and lonely reality. And as many of his works illustrate, Conrad himself remained preoccupied with the tension and conflict arising Out of the difference between romantic dreams and sordid reality. 0f COurse the basic facts regarding Conrad's youth have been recorded by his biOgraphers, but the point I wish to stress is the influence these factors had upOn his view of himself and in turn upOn his fiction. It must be understood, for instance, that the sense of divisiOn or duality in Conrad extends beyond the mere conflict between the dream and the reality. Conrad's heritage - aside from his unhappy childhood - was in many ways dual in nature. His family was both aristocratic and revolutionary; his father was both an intellectual and a man of action; Conrad himself was Polish but he was clas— Sified as a Russian citizen. Conrad's sense of personal inner conflict, however, was apparently based on a more fundamental aspect of his own character. After his father's death, his mother's brother, Tadeusz Bobrowski, 24Jocelyn Baines, Joseph Conrad: ‘A Critical BiOgraphy (1960; rpt. New York, McGraw-Hill, 1967), p. 19. 44 became Conrad's guardian and more than any other person, Uncle Tadeusz influenced Conrad's yOuth and early manhood. He was not only his guardian and COunselor, he was his closest friend and his Only real tie to Poland until his death in 1894, when Conrad was thirty-six years Old. In contrast to Apollo Korzeniowski, Tadeusz was a prudent and largely conservative man. Jozef Bobrowski had disapproved of his daughter Eva's marriage to Apollo and the couple was forced to wait until five years after his death before they were allowed to marry. To a large degree, Tadeusz Shared his father's view of Apollo Korzeniowski and he was fond of contrasting the family characteristics of the Korzeniowskis with those of the Bobrowskis. The Bobrowskis, his side of Conrad's heri— tage, were, according to Tadeusz, sensible and reSponSible peOple; but the Korzeniowskis were emotional and often childishly irrational. His letters to Conrad are filled with advice and admonitions and more than once he found it necessary to reprimand the yOung man for his careless— ness with money and his lack of simple Common sense. Usually, Tadeusz blamed Conrad's weakness on his Korzeniowski blood, which made half of him innately irresponsible; and appealed to him to be more influenced by his Bobrowski blood. He tells Conrad that You always, my dear bOy, made me impatient - and still make me impatient by the disorder and the easy way yOu take things - 45 in which you remind me of the Korzeniowski family - spoiling and wasting everything - and not my dear Sister, your Mother, who was careful about everything.25 He blames Conrad's problems in France on your Nalecz blood . . . unfortunately I do not perceive in this whole affair any trace of that prudent common sense of which on the distaff side you have the right to be proud. (Najder, 47) But when Conrad begins to make a success of his career, Tadeusz applauds him. I see with pleasure that the Nalecz in yOu has been modified under the influence of the Bobroszczaki, as your incomparable Mother used to call her own family after She flew away to the Nalecz nest. This time I rejoice over the influence of my family, although I don't in the least deny that the Naleczes have a Spirit of initiative and enterprise greater than that which is in my blood. From the blending of these two excellent families in your worthy person there shOuld Spring a race which by its endurance and wise enterprise will astOund the whole world! (Najder, 66)26 25Zdzislaw Najder, ed., Conrad's Polish Background: Letters to and from Polish Friends, trans. Halina Carroll (London,—Dxford U.P., 1964), p. 37. Further quotations from this volume are followed by the editor's name and page references. 26It shOuld be noted that there is a remarkable similarity between Tadeusz's attitudes regarding the benefit of family "blending" and Gobineau's theory that some amount of racial mixture is necessary for the develOpment of civilization. 46 Unfortunately, Conrad's letters to his uncle have been lost; and it is impossible to determine what his reSpOnse to passages such as the above actually was. We do know, however, that Tadeusz did have a major moral influence on Conrad. Shortly after his uncle's death, he wrote to Marguerite Poradowska that Tadeusz was the wisest, the firmest, the most indulgent of guardians, extending over me a paternal care and affection, a moral support which I seemed to feel always near me in the most distant parts of the earth.27 There is no reason to suppose that Conrad wOuld have had any reason to reject his uncle's aristocratic convictions regarding the importance of family blood lines. As we have seen, most of the contemporary theories of heredity and race would have supported Such ideas. Much of Tadeusz Bobrowski's character as it is reflected in his letters reminds us of Conrad's portrayal of "the man of purpose.” Like Marlow, Tadeusz firmly be- lieved that the individual must subordinate his own desires to the needs of the community. We know, for instance, that Tadeusz not only held himself reSpOnsible for his nephew's welfare, but that he also supported his his younger brother Kazimier and his large family. He complained about it constantly, but he did it. 27Baines, p. 134. 47 In response to a letter from Conrad which apparently asked him to list the weaknesses in the yOunger man's character, Tadeusz told Conrad--who was then thirty-fOur --that you have always lacked endurance and perseverance in decisions, which is the result of your instability in your aims and desires. YOu lack endurance, Panie Bracie, in the face of facts _ and, I suppose, in the face of peOple too? This is a trait of character inherited from yOur Grandfather — yOur paternal Uncle - and even yOur father: in short the Naleczs. The former two were always involved in variOus projects, most diverse in nature, mostly of a practical type - they hatched them in their imagina— tion and were even offended when anyone criticized them - considering their Opponents to be "idiots," but the facts most often gave the lie to their dreams, hence bitterness towards those who saw more clearly. Your Father was an idealistic dreamer. . . . They all had a high Opinion of themselves and Suffered much after their failures - suffered more intensely than appeared or could be ex- pected. Thus, Panie Bracie, yOu also are Subject to these inherited shortcomings and you too bear their punishment. In your projects yOu let your imagination run away with you - yOu become an Optimist, but when yOu encounter disappointments yOu fall easily into pessimism - and as you have a lot of pride, you suffer more as the result of disappointments than some- body would who had a more moderate imagina- tion but was endowed with greater endurance in activity and relationships. (Najder, 147-8) 1? - ‘l‘318 is a remarkable passage for any student of Conrad. () t‘te is immediately reminded of Conrad's stress on the 11“portance of restraint, action and steadfastness. ‘1 FJ.‘ ‘fi. ’31»...- .. h . . -r 48 Marlow's insistence in Lord Jim that we must remain ”in- vulnerable to the strength of facts, to the contagion of example, to the solicitation of ideas" (XXI, 43) seems to echo Tadeusz's censure of Conrad's own lack of endurance "in the face of facts." Furthermore, Bobrowski's description of the Quixotic Korzeniowski and his emphasis on the danger of imagination remind us of ma ny of Conrad's romantic dreamers and one of the central themes in his major work. More importantly, however, Tadeusz argues that Conrad's weakness is inevitable bee ause it is inherited. As Marlow will suggest in "The Heart of Darkness,” Tadeusz seems to be telling his nephew tha t the key to human strength is not culturally acquired but inborn, transmitted in the blood. Later in the same year, Tadeusz wrote another letter of advice to his nephew. Conrad, who was emplOyed as a war ehOuse superintendent at the time, was bored and unhappy and this mood was apparently reflected in his letters to his uncle, for Tadeusz begins his letter by a d<1messing Conrad as "My Dear Pessimist." Once again, 'I‘ atieusz stresses the inherent weakness in Conrad's charac- t: QTI: and insists that the only way to become strong is by ‘r: QSisting the temptations evoked by dreams and imagination a “d to remain devoted instead to the needs of one's s QQiety. To a large degree, this letter is a further deVelOpment of the ideas Tadeusz had expressed in his 49 earlier letter. Here, however, he characterizes Conrad's weakrmss as a form of pessimism. Pessimism, Tadeusz tells his nephew, can occur in early yOuth or old age, or it can. be the product of physical illness, but the "sickness" that: Conrad suffers from is caused by a "diseased imagina- tiorl." Diseased pessimism is the result of exaggerated demands and of wishes either for oneself or for others - in the positive or negative sense - one's whole power of resistance has become consumed in dreaming and there is none left for the Suber judge- ment of facts and of the variOus problems of life, and there is none left for action or COunteraction. (Najder, 153) The essential tension in much of Conrad's work is created by the conflict between the communal demand for 3°C ial conformity and reSpOnsibility and the romantic 1nd ividual's need to pursue the truth he finds in his own dreams. Conrad's dreamers suffer from what Tadeusz wOuld C:afil1_ an over-active imagination, which in turn causes diSeased pessimism. Tadeusz's description of this illness is 1‘emarkably close to Conrad's portrait of Almayer who lives for the fulfillment of his dreams 0f wealth and 31 or); and is incapable of living when his dream is destroyed, And Almayer is only the first of Conrad's dreamers. In order to avoid diseased pessimism, Tadeusz advocates the submission of the individual will and the a Feeptance of social responsibility. The individual, Omarndc dreamer, in Tadeusz's view, is always doomed to 50 failure, and he lectures Conrad on this point: YOu will never control the forces of nature, for whether blind or governed by Providence, in each case they have their own pre-ordained paths; and yOu will also never change the roads along which humanity goes, for there exists in social develOpment an historical evolutionary compulsion which is slow but Sure, and which is governed by the laws of cause and effect derived from the past and affecting the future. If, on this road, the will and work of man mean anything - if in this field all the endeaVOurs of men and their chosen individuals - the geniuses - are effective - everyone may and even Ought to COntribute to it his hand or head, according to his strength and talents - but not himself dreaming of being the chosen Apostle of the peOple - for that way he may only meet with bitter disappointment - but rather thinking of himself as a modest tiny ant which by its insignificant toil in fulfilling its modest duty secures the life and existence of the whole nest! Certainly humanity has a lesser need of producing geniuses than of the already-existing modest and conscientious workers who fulfill their duties; nobody has the right to call himself the former until he has proved it by deeds, just as nobody has the right to withdraw from the work of the latter because of his conviction that he is not part of the team. (Najder, 154)28 \— I113 28Almost ten years earlier, Tadeusz had explained to C10“ ‘nephew that "all things in the world and in life are Ottslected with each other. We are reaponsible for each Pp er and the family spirit is based On that" (Najder, ‘ 85-86). It is interesting to compare this Statement ‘v‘ fttl‘ Captain Lingard's assertion that "We are responsible x1; One another - worse luck" (ii-Ll Outcast _g_f_ the Islands, : 48). 51 Tadeusz views history in terms of prOgress. Societies improve or evolve over long periods of time thrOugh the combined efforts of all of their members and this upward develOpment is both natural and inevitable. This conser- vative social philOSOphy anticipates similar themes in Conrad's work. Geniuses like Kurtz choose to see them— selves as Apostles and end up learning that they are incapable of controlling the forces of nature singlehanded. Marlow survives because he remains faithful to his sense of communal duty. Further, Tadeusz's notion of the way SOCieties improve is similar to the ideas Marlow expresses in "Heart of Darkness" when he COnjectures that civilized and primitive man are separated by time. For both Tadeusz and Marlow history is an evolutionary process. It is impossible to ascertain exactly what meaning or value Tadeusz may have associated with the word evolu- t:lonary, but we shOuld assume that he was at least aware o . . . f the controversy in EurOpean intellectual Circles c O I O l ' l entered on the variOus solentlflc and soc1al theories of e , . . v01ution. For Instance, while he himself was not a man 0 f 8Cience, he apparently shared the modern interest in t he Scientific Study of man. He writes to Conrad that he has met a Polish anthrOpolOgist who is studying human I: aCQs by comparing types of skulls and he goes so far as to ask his nephew to aid in this work by collecting native Sku118 during his v0yages. He rejects the concept of Pan 52 Slavism being advanced by the Russians because of an apparently inherent natural antipathy. Poland, he tells COnrad, has "a higher culture and a longer history" (Najder, 80). At other times he reminds Conrad of his antipathy toward Belgians who are a "Latin race" and explains the difference between England and Poland by suggesting that the English character cannot be appealed to on the basis of "sentiment and eloquence" but rather in terms of "well-understood and personal interest." The more romantic Polich national character, however, tends to be "disinterested in regard to money matters" (Najder, 84). Tadeusz Bobrowski was Conrad's closest relative and friend and the only real tie he had to Poland during the ueat‘ly twenty years he Spent at sea. And, to the extent that he remained Conrad's only consistent source of mature authority, he was the only father Conrad ever had. Throughout most of this time, he supported Conrad with a gentleman's a11owance and whenever necessary extricated him from his social and financial difficulties. Uncle Tadeusz paid his gambling debts, gave him advances on his a 11(Durance and rushed to his aid when he apparently wOunded hlmself in an attempt at suicide. Tadeusz's letters are filled with moral lectures and reprimands. and on more t ha“ one occasion he threatened to abandon any further resFeasibility for his nephew, but he never did. 53 Therefore, considering the intense nature of the relxatiOnship between these two men as well as the time wheri these letters were written, it is probable that Conraad was deeply influenced by his uncle's analysis of his character and it is equally probable that he accepted Tadesusz's explanation that his Supposed dual nature was caursed by the conflicting qualities of the Korzeniowski and Bobrowski blood lines which he had inherited. For instance, in a letter to Kazimierz Waliszewski, a Polish luist:orian, he refers to his uncle Tadeusz as "a man of great character and unusual qualities of mind. . . . I attribute to his devotion, care and influence, whatever 300d qualities I may possess" (Najder, 239). Further on in the same letter, Conrad takes up a new t‘1Plic, the relationship between his art and himself: Both at sea and on land my point of view is English, from which the conclusion should not be drawn that I have become an Englishman. That is not the case. Homo duplex has in my case more than one meaning. You will understand me. I shall not dwell upon that subject. (Najder, 240) Conraid, of COurse, is referring to the contrast between 1118 iEngliSh novels and his Polish heritage: bUt he is a13° s“‘Bgesting that he is a divided man because his COuntry 7renu11n8 divided and he himself - remembering his British °1t12ensh1p and English wife - is divided from his country. W' '3 have reason to suSpect, however, that Conrad may be 54 alluding - consciOusly or unCOnsciously - to the dual quality of his own inner nature, which his uncle had so often stressed. Conrad was, from his own point of view, a divided man, and it has often been pointed out that this sense of division is manifested in his fiction where the central dramatic conflict often arises out of a tension between the Quixotic, romantic man (Korzeniowski - Lord Jim) and the communal man of purpose (Bobrowski - Lingard/Marlow). My pOint here, however, is to emphasize that the basis for Conrad's belief in his dual character was apparently founded on a belief in the biolOgical transference of fatnily - or "racial" - traits. We have seen that most educated men of Conrad's age believed in some form of hereditary characteristics and it is clear that Tadeusz Bobrowski shared this view and used it repeatedly to ex- plain the dual nature of Conrad's character and the dangerOus romantic blood that he had inherited from the d . . . . ream), Korzeniowskls. The question that remains is: to racial What extent did Conrad himself believe in inherited identities? 111 It may be impossible to determine absolutely what C°nrad .. or any man - may have really believed about an)” thing, but on the basis of his correspondence and his 55 autobiOgraphical writing as well as the testimony of his wife and friends, we may discover certain patterns that imply a consistent, if not always explicitly stated, belief. Anyone familiar with Conrad's biOgraphy is aware of the fact that he detested all Russians and either scorned or hated most Germans. And, while he steadfastly attempted to maintain his Polish identity, he also felt a great Personal and philOSOphical affinity for England and what he considered to be the essential English character. Russia and Germany destrOyed his COuntry and his family, whi 1e England gave him his career, his art and a new family. It is not surprising, therefore, that Conrad's private and public statements ShOuld reflect these atti— tudes. "AutocraCy and War," for instance, is an almost hysterical denunciation of Russia; while his essays on Poland are filled with unrestrained and uncritical applause for all things Polish. Conrad was, no doubt, biaSed in his views toward England, Poland, Germany and RUSSia. He was, in fact, given to identifying and e valuating both individuals and governments on the basis 0 f What he assumed to be their national character. To a large degree, Conrad's notions about natiOnal charélcter reflect the received ideas of his day: Jews are a vat‘icious, Latins are emotional and Celts are warlike. What is significant, however, is the fact that these 56 incations, which are manifested in almost all of Conrad's “Hr iting, seem to have had a major influence on his under- s t:£1nding of himself and his concept of human nature and t E163 relationships between man and his society, the rial-tzural world, and the universe. It is, therefore, vital t C) emphasize that his basis for judging all men was not founded on simple prejudice, but on an implicit belief in tllm. t: blame the Russians for destrOying his COuntry and his fa nily; he bases his argument on a theory of inborn racial ‘1 jL Lifferences and a concept of mutual repulsion between rVEi-<::es which is similar to Gobineau's theory on the same £31—‘l-l:>ject. Conrad insists that he is not Slavic because his rei-<::ial origins are western and therefore the "mentality” a. nd "emotionalism" of the "barbaric and "Byzantine" I{~"~:l-£3.sians is automatically repugnant to him. In fact, (3 <3'1E1Lrad's essential stress is on his own inborn qualities. EI'GE- admits that, because of the natural affinities between I? ‘3'].and and the west, his mind may have been influenced by 8 “Ch things as French romanticism, but his real accomplish- It‘SELrits are not the product of any acquired ability, but \— 29(continued) what Conrad is referring to as "an ex- it) l-oded superstition,” but it may be that he was aware of 11e fact that many of the nineteenth-century theories re- Sgiiirding heredity and race had, by this time, been largely (1 i-scredited by modern genetics. The fact is, however, at this passage clearly indicates that Conrad remained i n the habit of defining himself and defending his Conduct i‘tl terms of what he believed to be his racial inheritance air1d character. It may be of further interest to note that (3 c>nrad compared Almayer's neglected Office to "a temple of £111 exploded superstition" (XIV, 300). Also see Conrad's 1etter to Charles Chasse dated Jan. 3lst, 1924 (Aubry, II, 36). 59 razther his "instinctive reSpOnse" to "the voice from innsside." Apparently, then, Conrad is claiming that his i.r111erited racial character (”the voice from within") not <3r1 ].y separates him from Russian Slavonism but also pro— ‘rzi.<1es him with the source for his artistic vision. Other passages in Conrad's correspondence indicate t flnéa.t he frequently viewed himself in terms of what he 5153 £3.umed to be his racial character. When his first son B C>”3:-ys was born, he wrote to Aniela Zagorska that in tléi.]ncling his child, the rights of two races shOuld be respected. My wife representing the Anglo—Saxon has chosen the Saxon name of Alfred. As for me I was in a dilemma. I wanted to choose a name that was purely Slavonic and yet easy for foreigners to pronOunce and write. I therefore decided on the name of Borys, remembering that my friend Stanislas Zaleski gave that name to his eldest son - from which I conclude that a Pole may bear that name. (Aubry, I, 224-5) I:‘éi-Ill‘ly in the following year, Charles Zagorski died and C onrad wrote a letter of Sympathy to his widow wherein he ‘Il‘c>\irned the loss of "the man most akin to me in thought {i 1343 by blood - after my uncle who took the place of my Ip'éi'rents" (Aubry, I, 228). Perhaps facetiOusly, he later ‘h> 1filmed the weakness of his inherited character for not ‘? iting more often: 60 It is only in appearance that I am ungrateful. In reality I am not - I am Only a man with a weak will - and full of good intentions, with which - as they say — hell is paved. What wOuld yOu have, my dear? The Maylays say: ”the tiger cannot change his stripes" - and I - my ultraslav nature. (Aubry, I, 288) I r1.t:eresting1y enough, Conrad describes himself as a Slav When he is writing to a Polish relative; but as we have s.e2 (sen, he will reject the same label when it links him to Ru ssian Slavonism. Conrad's concept of his racial identity was tied to 113i— as; concept of the Polish racial character. For this r'eE-c‘alson, he is capable of both rationalizing his failures ar1 his friend and literary agent, J. B. Pinker, he writes tl‘lnLaEat "from the very first day he had an excellent seat and ‘1 :tmost amusing assurance on horseback. I daresay he 3i~171713erits the instinct from his Polish ancestors" (Aubry, 3: JE- , 31). In "Poland Revisited" he reflects on the influ— ‘2“nl<:e that visit to Poland must have had upon his sons: I trusted to the fresh receptivity of these young beings in whom, unless Heredity is an empty word, there should have been a fibre which would answer to the sight, to the atmosphere, to the memories of that corner of the earth where my own bOyhOOd had received its earliest independent impressions. (NLL, III, 146)31 \ 31For purposes of clarity and economy, I have Ellbbreviated the titles of Conrad's non-fictional volumes In the following manner: NLL (Notes on Life and Letters); 53 (Mirror of the S33); and PR (Personal Record). 62 Clearly enOugh, Conrad not only believed that Borys's 5 kill in horsemanship was an inherited trait, but he ex- pected that both of his children wOuld have inherited an i nnate receptivity ("a fibre") not only toward the physi- c a 1 environment of Poland, but to the memories of their fa ther's experience. That is, while neither Borys nor J Olin had ever visited Poland before, Conrad eXpected them t o reSpond instinctively to the land because — "unless He redity is an empty word" - they would have inherited ‘2 heir father's racial memories of his own experiences '3 h ere.32 Conrad's belief in inherited experience is further ma tiifested by a passage in Jessie Conrad's Joseph Conrad a\s I Knew Him which reflects Conrad's concern over his S Q1'1'8 seeming lack of the literary and artistic talents which he apparently believed they should have inherited f 1‘ om their father. In order to counter her husband's d eSpondency over the matter, Jessie "would suggest that \ 32Later in the same essay Conrad expresses a similar {a‘tltitude as he describes his own feelings upon departing I‘om England: "I felt that all thisEEngland] had a very £3'tlrong hold on me as the embodiment of a beneficent and gQutle Spirit; that it was clear to me not as an inheri- iince, but as an acquisition, as a conquest in the sense i 11 which a woman is conquered--by love, which is a sort ‘32E surrender." Borys and John are half English, however, aTnd"the forms and the spirit of the land...were their Inheritance, not their conquest--which is a thing pre- C:i3r10us, and, therefore, the most preciOus, possessing yOu If only by the fear of unworthiness rather than possessed by you" (_N_I_._I_._, III, 148-9). 63 perhaps they had inherited some of their characteristics from me, and that both w0uld probably turn Out men of ac tion."33 The ObViOuS implicatiOn is that Conrad judged not: only himself but his children an the basis of what he s u pposed to be their inherited characteristics.34 To Conrad, Poland and its history were a reflection 0f the national character: the inner fibre of the Polish ra ce. He also believed that perSOnal identity was de pendent upon racial identity and because of this, he t e nded to look at his own departure from Poland as some- t h ing more than a simple emigration. In A Personal Record he tells us that "there was no precedent. I verily be- 1 3.— eve mine was the only case of a b0y of my nationality a. nd antecedents taking a, so to Speak, standing jump Out of his racial SurrOundings and antecedents" (PR, VI, 121). L 1 Re many of his protagonists, Conrad crossed Over the hedges, but unlike almost all of them, he managed to sur- ° ive; yet not without a price. COnrad wrote English 1“~<>ve1s with an English name, took an English wife, and ac<:umulated English friends and counselors; but his 1 etters to his relatives and his statements regarding his \—___—. 33(London, Heinemann, 1926), pp. 5-6. 34In an interview published by R. L. Megroz, Conrad :onrtedly insisted that his sons had "inherited" his inability, distaste, and horror of [English] grammar" - -:I;g§eph Conrad's Mind and Method (London, Faber, 1931), p. 62. 64 neative land make it clear that he remained profoundly t i.ed to his Polish ”racial surroundings.” He is able, f'c>r instance, to excuse himself for not writing by ex— 13 1.aining that "there is in me so much of the Englishman, t:11.e sailor, and the adventurer, that I do not care to tv I: ite - even to my nearest and dearest relatives — when l:‘t1.ings do not go well” (Najder, 220). But in a state of S e IiOus depression fostered by ill health, he rejects the I3 Ifillgglishman in himself when he tells the same person that tl‘Eh writes "novels to amuse the English" (Najder, 225). As ”never in I‘-