A Misogynist or not?：Joseph Conrad and Heart of Darkness文献综述

 2022-08-19 09:46:41

Literature Review of

A Misogynist or not: Joseph Conrad and Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad, an important pioneer of British modernism literature, has been considered as a male-oriented author because most of his works are dominated by male characters. So some people comment that Conrad is a “mid anti-feminism” and a “blatant misogynist” who is potentially hostile to women. As his representative work，Heart of Darkness attracted much attention of domestic and foreign scholars and became naturally the object of feminist criticism because it refers to mostly male world of the exclusion of women. This literature review is going to introduce published studies on Joseph Conradrsquo;s attitude towards women.

In the decades since the publication of Kate Millettrsquo;s Sexual Politics, feminism flourished, transforming the cultural history by revealing the appalling extent to which masculist assumptions had hitherto been accepted as generally valid. Eventually feminist literary critics turned their attention to Conrad because most of his works are dominated by male characters.

In the 1960s, recent critics studied the roles of the women in Heart of Darkness in the light of psychoanalytic principles. Both Bernard C. Meyer and Thomas Moser focus on the influence of Conradrsquo;s fears and ambivalence on female portrait. Joseph Conrad: A psychoanalytical Biography by Bernard C. Meyer which was published in 1967 has been regarded as the first critical method to study women from the perspective of feminism. Much evidence of letters in Joseph Conrad: A psychoanalytical Biography shows the much more complex relationship among Conrad, women in his life, and the female characters in his works, which undoubtedly offers a starting point for the feminist evaluation. Conradrsquo;s incomplete childhood experience, especially his motherrsquo;s early death in 1865, casts a shadow on him and his creation. Meyer digs out the marginal heroines from the novel, and thinks that they are the symbol of terrifying powers of destructiveness and abandonment and shadow related to death. He also believes that Conrad is really a misogynist and has a fear of women. From the perspective of psychoanalytical biography, Meyer points out that in Heart of Darkness, Marlowrsquo;s journey to Congo is probably related to the visit to Hades. Two sinister women in charge of the register of seamen to Congo would remind reader of Sibyl who guide stream to Hades. In addition, he also links the fear of feminine with the fear of the darkness of “the menace of vegetation”, for he thinks that the vivid descriptions of the darkness in the novel is the true reflection of the authorrsquo;s inner fear of women.

Thomas Moser, in Joseph Conrad: Achievement and Decline, expounds Meyerrsquo;s opinion further and holds that the female characteristics of the jungle image in Heart of Darkness are related to the female sexual threat. He also points out that itrsquo;s the first time for Conrad to apply such kind of material related to sex to strengthen his story in some respect. Meyer presents perhaps the most vivid example of the critical approach to Conrad, which often obscures the important differences between the authorrsquo;s personal experience and the text. Therefore, the main female characters are regarded as greedy, crazy, possessive and vicious, as though the characterizations come directly from the author. It is by creating a creative method that both Bernard C. Meyer and Thomas Moser illuminate the women issues in Conradrsquo;s novel; but the exhaustive approach is much more expected.

During the 1980s, certain pioneering studies of gender in Conrad were published, notably by Nina Pelikan Straus and Karen Klein. These critics began to consider his works in terms of a sophisticated awareness of gender theory, going beyond the question of Conradrsquo;s overt ideas about women to analyze gendered structures in his fiction.

Straus claims that this novella was a brutally sexist work: male critics have repeatedly become accomplices of Marlow who brings truth to men by virtue of his bringing falsehood to women: The women readerhellip;hellip; is in the position to suggest that Malowrsquo;s cowardice consists of his inability to face the dangerous self that is that is the form of his own masculinist vulnerability: his own complicity in the racist, sexist, imperialist and finally libidinally satisfying world he has inhabited with Kurtz. Straus criticizes Conrad who excluded gender issues in narrative words and argued that Heart of Darkness primarily perpetuates “patriarchal”, or “masculinist”, or “androcentric” ideology and Conrad is the accomplice of Marlow. He argues that Marlow aimed to talk about other women in his discourse although Marlow talked women. Women could also be included in his audience without any indication. There is no indication that his survival human included women. He increases the framework deliberately so that readers can be included in Marlowrsquo;s audience. Whatrsquo;s more, Straus thinks that Heart of Darkness is a novel which is filled with gender discrimination in his article The Exclusion of the Intended from Secret Sharing in Conradrsquo;s Heart of Darkness.

Elaine Showalter points out that the tale assumes a distinctively male “circle of readers” and it excludes females from knowledge of reality explicitly and implicitly. Johanna M. Smith in Contemporary Criticism puts forward an incisive criticism that the African jungle is in fact the embodiment of Kurtzrsquo;s lover and Marlow brings a sense of patriarchy and imperialism in the jungle. He also believes that the conquest of that mysterious jungle symbolizes the conquest of womenrsquo;s body and mind.

剩余内容已隐藏，您需要先支付 10元 才能查看该篇文章全部内容！立即支付

以上是毕业论文文献综述，课题毕业论文、任务书、外文翻译、程序设计、图纸设计等资料可联系客服协助查找。

您可能感兴趣的文章