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Theses Digitisation: This Is a Digitised Version of the Original Print Thesis. Copyright and Moral https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ Theses Digitisation: https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/research/enlighten/theses/digitisation/ This is a digitised version of the original print thesis. Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Being in Time - the fictional coloniser as Dasein by Sean Somerville Armstrong A thesis submitted to the University of Glasgow in accordance with the requirements of the degree of Ph.D. in the Faculty of Arts, Department of English Literature, November 2002 Sean Somerville Armstrong, November 2002 ProQuest Number: 10391022 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10391022 Published by ProQuest LLO (2017). C o pyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code Microform Edition © ProQuest LLO. ProQuest LLO. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.Q. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 4 8 1 0 6 - 1346 GLASGOW UNIVERSITY LIBRARY: Cûjy-^ Abstract This study examines the theory and praxis of colonial discourse analysis and the validity of its conception of ‘the colonising (white, European, Western) subject’ via a Heideggarian interpretation of colonial fiction. The Introduction provides a brief review of colonial discourse analysis and postcolonial studies since Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978 and isolates the main themes to be examined. The First Chapter examines in detail the problems which adhere to the concept of colonial discourse and its theoretical homogenisation, un-worlding and de-humanisation of the fictional and historical coloniser as understood in relation to Heidegger’s description of “Enframing”. The Second Chapter sets out the basic structures of Dasein’s existential-ontological constitution as described by Heidegger in Being and Time and introduces the principle criterion for the critical analysis which follows. The Third Chapter re-defines colonial discourse, as “idle talk”, in terms of the temporality of Dasein and examines the various ways in which certain fictional colonisers, when understood as “beings in Time”, reflect the fact that Dasein’s individuality is always already ontologically grounded and made manifest in its “authentic potentiality-for-Being-its-Self’. The Fourth Chapter discusses the theme of death, as “Being towards death”, in the life and work of Rudyard Kipling, and suggests that death, as both a profoundly significant environmental factor and as a fundamental temporal orientation can be understood to bring Dasein before itself as a ‘Being in the world’. The Fifth Chapter examines anxiety and boredom in certain works of colonial literature in terms of the intentional comportments of Dasein’s “care” and as those ontological “states-of-mind” which deliver the individual Dasein and the world (as “Being-in-the- world”) over to Dasein. The Final Chapter investigates the cultural phenomenon of ‘colonial heroism’ in terms of the ontological constitution of the hero, the writer and the reader, as Dasein, and in relation to Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim . My Conclusion offers a summary of each of the previous chapters before considering some of the broader ramifications of the arguments which have been advanced. Dedication Dedicated to my partner and my family Acknowledgements Thanks are due to Dr. Donald Mackenzie for his generous, patient and always stimulating supervision. To my partner, my mother, family and friends for their constant support and encouragement, and without whom this thesis would never have been written. To the Ardfoyle Educational Trust, the Gilchrist Educational Trust and the University of Glasgow for their invaluable financial assistance. My greatest debt is acknowledged in my dedication. Declaration This thesis represents my own unassisted work, and no part of it has been submitted previously for any academic qualification. The views expressed are my own and not those of the University of Glasgow Sean Armstrong Being in Time - the fictional coloniser as Dasein Contents INTRODUCTION P. 1 CHAPTER I: Colonial Discourse P. 15 1. The Drive Towards Discursive Functionality and Colonial P. 16 Discourse Analysis as “Enframing” 2. The “Enframing” of ‘the colonising subject’ P. 27 (a) Homogenisation P. 27 (b) Un-worlding P. 32 (c) De-humanising P. 39 CHAPTER II: Heidegger’s Existential-ontological analytic P. 51 1. Dasein and the Ontological Difference P. 53 2. The Ontological Analytic of Dasein - authenticity and inauthenticity P. 56 3. Death P. 60 4. Boredom and Anxiety P. 64 5. Ontological heroism and “anticipatory resoluteness” P. 74 CHAPTER HI: Being in Time and the fictional coloniser P. 84 1. Being in Time P. 86 (a) “Idle Talk” and the Inauthentic Temporality of the “They” P. 86 (b) “Idle Talk” and the Fictional Coloniser P. 91 2. Dasein’s Temporality - Memory and the “there” P. 103 CHAPTER IV: “Being-in-the-world” and Death in Kipling P. 113 1. Death and Rudyard Kipling P. 115 (a) “Our near companion...” P. 122 (b) “Being towards death” P. 132 CHAPTER V: Anxiety and Boredom P. 145 1. Anxiety P. 147 (a) Dread and Uncanniness P. 147 (b) Loneliness P. 163 (c) Fear P. 169 2. Boredom P. 174 CHAPTER VI: Heroism P. 181 1. Towards an Ontological definition of Heroism P. 187 2 “Being-in-the-world” and the “Demand” P. 190 3. The “Demand” in Colonial Fiction P. 195 (a) The heroic cowardice of Lord Jim P. 197 CONCLUSION P. 209 BIBLIOGRAPHY P. 217 Being in Time - the fictional coloniser as Dasein INTRODUCTION With colonialism it’s easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Robert Young, White Mythologies^ Who is ‘the colonising subject’ of colonial discourse analysis? Who is ‘the white man’? Who is ‘the European’ or ‘the Westerner’? As Robert Young’s, less than serious, observation implies, we all seem to know who the “bad guys” are. But does this automatically mean that it is subsequently “easy” to know and explain what and how the “bad guys” are, as “bad guys”? If we drop the unhelpful moral epithet and speak more plainly, does this mean that it is “easy” to know what and how the ‘the white man’, ‘the European’ or ‘the Westerner’ as ‘the colonising subject’ isl In short, what do we mean when we use ‘the colonising subject’ as a theoretical category and a descriptive term in our analysis of the history, people, culture and, most specifically, literature of the colonial era? In the twenty years since Edward Said’s Orientalism, colonial discourse analysts have, among other things, drawn attention to the ways in which ‘white Western’ writers, politicians, scientists and colonialists have described themselves, their race and civilisation. In philosophical and political tracts, ethnographic studies, novels and poems, ‘the white Western Male’ has elucidated and elaborated the supposedly inherent, and eminently noble, attributes of Western society. According to Lord Cromer, speaking as a former consul-general of Egypt: [T]he European is a close reasoner; his statements of fact are devoid of any ambiguity; he is a natural logician. ^ And, as postcolonial commentators and colonial discourse analysts have shown, this confident identification of the innate characteristics of the ‘white Western European’ is all too often, if not inevitably, conducted in opposition to the ‘Black’, ‘Eastern’, ‘Oriental’ or colonised ‘Other’. [Wjhat can be more irreducibly “other” to Western thought, and to those developments which problematize it, than the colonized body?^ ^ Robert Young, White Mythologies: Writing History and the West (London: Routledge, 1990), p. 5. ^ Quoted by Edward Said in Orientalism (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1995), p. 38. ^ Annamaria Carusi, ‘Post, Post and Post. Or, Where is South African Literature in All This?’ in Ian Adam and Helen Tiffin (eds.), Past the Last Post: Theorizing Post-Colonialism and Post-Modernism (Hemel Hempstead; Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993), p. 103. 1 Lord Cromer, again obliges us with an exemplary case in point, when he concludes his earlier line of reasoning with the equally confident assertion that ...the mind of the Oriental, on the other hand, like the picturesque streets, is eminently wanting in symmetry. His reasoning is of the most slipshod description.'^ For Said, Cromer’s statement plainly articulates the Orientalist fiction that “Orientals were almost everywhere nearly the same”.^ And it is this mode of disparaging and fundamentally racist categorisation which Said notes and describes as “Oriental discourse”: [That] laiowledge of the Orient that places things Oriental in class, court, prison, or manual for scrutiny, study, judgement, discipline, or governing.'’ However, in stating his case against Oriental discourse as “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and
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