Otherness and the absurd in joseph conrad's and albert camus's fictional works : a comparative study

Abstract

In my research work I have chosen to look at four texts by two writers with a worldwide readership: Joseph Conrad and Albert Camus. Both Conrad and Camus are considered revisionist imperialists because they are caught in the contradiction between the orthodox Eurocentric view of Empire and their own –rather liberal-humanist. Their malaise lies in their intellectual predicament as well as in their spiritual instability both stemming from their civic status (one is an adopted Briton and the other is a reclaimed Frenchman). I have followed in this comparative study a Postcolonial and a neo-Marxist (Macherey) approach; two approaches that have revealed the political stands of Conrad and Camus. My comparative study is concerned with two of each writer’s fictional works: Heart of Darkness and L’Etranger on the one hand, and Lord Jim and La Chute on the other. In my thesis, I insist on the fact that Conrad and Camus were both fully aware of the negative impact of imperialism. Yet owing to historical and personal circumstances, they were caught in ambivalent stances. In order to resolve this dilemma, Conrad and Camus resorted to flight into metaphysics (the absurd in particular) yet without much conviction. I therefore attempt to shed light on the essential ambiguity that pervades their (unwitting) colonial discourses, laying emphasis on the ideological ‘strife’ within their minds. My outline comprises five chapters. The first chapter examines the socio-political background of both authors. It investigates their resemblances and differences in terms of biography and ideology. In the second chapter, I investigate Conrad’s and Camus’s stereotypical representation of the other in Heart of Darkness and L’Etranger respectively. At the same time I argue that their texts owe much to the colonial discourse, a discourse fraught with containment and condescension. In the third chapter, I attempt to show that Conrad’s and Camus’s discourses are characteristically ambivalent. This chapter further explores the tortuous complexity of the two writers’ worldviews through the analysis of some formal fictional aspects. Chapter four is concerned with Conrad’s and Camus’s escapism as appears in Lord Jim and La Chute. It also focuses on the ideological quandary faced by the two authors. Chapter five stresses the narrative strategies deployed by Conrad and Camus in their attempt to resolve the dilemma of the colonizer-colonized binary opposition. In the conclusion I argue that the kinship between Conrad and Camus can be accounted for by thematic similarities which, in a sense, are determined by nearly identical backgrounds. More explicitly, Conrad’s and Camus’s refusal to recognize –against their intellectual grain– the other as an equal, led them to adopt diversionary schemes. In other words, by escaping history, Conrad and Camus turn a blind eye on the struggle for recognition of the colonized as full-fledged human beings. As a result of their ideological muddle, Conrad and Camus fall back on artistic expressiveness, a saving grace which makes their readers overlook their political shortcomings. It is precisely their esthetic achievements which postcolonial critics and writers use as a stepping stone in their re-appraisal of Conrad’s and Camus’s works