Submitted in partial fulfillment for the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Zululand, 1997. / The primary aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that the women characters in Joseph Conrad's works function in the narratives to present a 'saving illusion' which is in contrast to masculine existential despair. The women characters are characterised by 'being' not 'becoming'. They are also frequently associated with that which is stable because it is fixed, and with notions of courage, faith and fidelity. These notions constitute the 'saving illusion' for male characters who are threatened with moral collapse when illusions fail. The representation of the women characters as 'saving illusion' arises from a mythology of 'woman' which inheres in masculine imagination. In the terms of myth theory, Conrad's women characters can be said to offer the male characters the life-affirming possibilities that traditional myth does. The representation of the women characters as myth functions as a competing discourse with that of authoritative masculine discourse. The women characters' discourse is thus centrifugal in that it resists the centripetal, unitary discourse of male characters, and demonstrates that narratives are essentially heteroglossic rather than monoglossic. Women's discourse can either comply with or resist the way they are defined by male characters. Depicted as silent, passive and iconic, the women characters are also frequently attributed with unwavering commitment and fidelity. However their discourse seeks to resist such constructions. Mythologising women renders them 'other', and the underlying suspicion and awe that leads to their mythologising renders them objects in the relationships of knowledge and power. Women characters have their existence in patriarchal structures which bear a resemblance to colonial structures. Mythologised women are similar to colonised 'other' in that both serve to demarcate the space of the coloniser. Like the colonised subject, women are frequently associated with 'chthonian' forces of nature which the coloniser regards as threatening, uncontrollable and in need of taming. As mythologised, colonised 'objects', the women characters are in a state of ontological arrest; hence they do not participate in an exchange of knowledge because they are symbolised by it. A study of the women characters in the novels will reveal that they play significant roles in the mythologies of male characters, providing a 'sustaining illusion' which counters masculine disillusionment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uzulu/oai:uzspace.unizulu.ac.za:10530/533 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | Soane, Berverley-Anne. |
| Contributors | Hooper, M. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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