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The moral ambiguity of Conrad's poetics: transgressive secret sharing in Lord Jim and Under Western Eyes.(Joseph Conrad)(Critical essay)

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From: Conradiana
Date: 20070922
Author:Levin, Yael

In a moment of self-reflexive lucidity, the narrator of Nabokov's Pale Fire muses that "[w]indows, as well known, have been the solace of first-person literature throughout the ages" (93). The narrator's words resonate with readers of Conrad, as a certain voyeurism clearly lies at the heart of his secret-sharing novel or short story. The intradiegetic narrator is always there, peering, observing, summing up, taking notes, a lone and often involved onlooker, a witness needing but not necessarily needed to commemorate. (1) One cannot subscribe to peering into windows, however, ...

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