Copyright by JOE LYNN CASH 1972 M^ THE TREATMENT OF WOMEN CHARACTERS IN THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JOSEPH CONRAD by JOE LYNN CASH, B.A., M.A. A DISSERTATION IN ENGLISH Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved Accepted May, 1972 AA.i,.. *- ^zi.,-^,*^~- :...^.-.j ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I cim deeply indebted to Professor Kenneth W. Davis for his direction of this dissertation and to the other members of my committee. Professors James W. Culp and Floyd E. Eddleman, for their helpful criticism. 11 •'••-' • •'- .^-^—la.—.<«. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii CHAPTER I. THE BIOGRAPHICAL INFLUENCES 1 II. THE WOMEN OF THE EARLY FICTION 20 III. THE WOMEN OF THE MIDDLE. FICTION 58 IV. THE WOMEN OF THE THREE DRAMAS 108 V. THE WOMEN OF THE LAST FICTION 140 VI. CONCLUSION 165 LIST OF REFERENCES CITED 180 LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED 184 111 • iittll j^jM—M—> • ...M.;sr-. CHAPTER I THE BIOGRAPHICAL INFLUENCES Joseph Conrad's women characters seem to have been the product of his personal life and early sea years, of his vacillation from the sea to the land, and of the chang­ ing times in early twentieth-century England. Under these influences generally fall his three major women types: the savages, the seekers of liberation, and the newly de­ veloped twentieth-century women. His treatment of these three general categories of women changed as he gained new experiences in life; and Conrad could hardly have lived during a time of greater transition. He began to write shortly before the turn of a century when there was a ris­ ing demand for women's suffrage and when industrialization was rushing toward a zenith. Poland, his native land, was involved in civil war; smd although his nation was geographically removed from the swiftly changing pace of living standards and the idealogie; of many of the countries of Western Europe, its civil strife which brought hardships and changes, indirectly influenced Conrad at a very early age. The political activity of his father during these times aroused the wrath of the new Polish government and ultimately forced the Korzeniowski family into exile. Such an enforced nomadic existence made it difficult for Conrad during his formative years to learn • • - . -»— -...,-> .^a--^ ^^.^a^ha much about women. His isolation from women other than his mother may account for the lack of feminine roles in his early novels and may explain some of the difficulties he was later to experience in achieving effective characteri­ zation of women. Conrad's mother and father, Evelina Bobrowski and Apollo Korzeniowski, lived a most difficult married life of eight years. Apollo had never been a favorite of the Bobrowski family, and his political philosophy and his per­ sonality did not ease family tensions. His business sense was extremely poor when it came to managing family estates since his main interests were national politics and literary endeavors. Because Evelina's father had forbidden her marrying Apollo, the death of Joseph Bobrowski did not suddenly free Evelina for marriage. Conrad writes in A Personal Record: Suffering in her health from the shock of her father's death (she was alone in the house with him when he died suddenly), she was torn by the inward struggle between her love for the man whom she was to marry in the end and her knowledge of her dead father's declared objection to that match. Unable to bring herself to disregard that cherished memory and that judgment she had always respected and trusted, and, on the other hand, feeling the im­ possibility to resist a sentiment so deep and so true, she could not have been expected to preserve her mental and moral balance. At war with herself, she could not give to others that feeling of peace which was not her own. It was only later, when Jocelyn Baines, Joseph Conrad: A Critical Biog­ raphy (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1960), p. 5. - - " * —• united at last with the man of her choice, that she developed those uncommon gifts of mind and heart which compelled the respect and admiration even of our foes. Meeting with calm fortitude the cruel trials of a life reflecting all the national and social misfortunes of the community, she realised the highest conceptions of duty as a wife, a mother and a patriot, sharing the exile of her husband and representing nobly the ideal of Polish womanhood.2 Apollo and Evelina had first met in 1847 at Koryna near Lipowiec, but they did not marry until 1856. The fol­ lowing year, 1857, their only child was born on December 3. Near the end of October, 1862, Apollo was arrested and im­ prisoned in the citadel for being a part of the resistance to Russian oppression. In fact, Apollo had helped found 3 the secret National Committee of Poland. The family prob­ lems became much more acute after the arrest since Apollo was undoubtedly strongly connected with the resistance. Jean-Aubry writes: The Russian authorities, informed by their spies, already knew of the clandestine meetings in the white and scarlet salon of Apollo Korzeniowski's house. Little Conrad sometimes saw people with grave faces enter and disappear, among them his mother, always dressed in black as a sign of 2 Joseph Conrad, A Personal Record, Malay Edition (Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1928), pp. 28-29. Hereafter all references to Conrad's fiction will be to individual volumes by title in The Malay Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad. No editor is given for this edition, and the individual volumes are not numbered. 3 G. Jean-Aubry, Joseph Conrad: Life and Letters, I (Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1927), 3-6. IfaiT ' II imtmtl^miiiiimmimitmaiMitimiammmi national mourning, though this was forbidden by the Russian police.^ There is no record of Joseph Conrad having had young friend in any kind of normal home situation before the age of six; and after Apollo's condemnation to exile, there was an even smaller chance (in relationship to either home or country) for Conrad to have the everyday experiences of youth. Conrad was six years old before he lived with chil­ dren his own age. He met his cousin Josephine (daughter of Thaddeus Bobrowski) at Nowofastow, his uncle's home; but he lived with the family for only three months. The Apollo Korzeniowski family had been exiled to Vologda in Northern Russia; but because of Evelina's health, she and her son 5 had been granted three months' leave in Nowofastow. At the end of the leave, Conrad and his mother were forced to return to Vologda where Evelina died of consumption on 6 April 6, 186 5. Jean-Aubry writes: Thus, deprived of his mother and in the company of a father already ill and more often than not sunk in gloomy silence, exiled among men whom he could regard only as enemies, Conrad spent his early childhood. He had no companions, no child to play with; and the tension in the atmosphere which had surrounded him from birth now approached its height.' ^Ibid., I, 6. ^Ibid., pp. 7-10. ^Ibid., p. 12. ^Ibid., p. 13. - "- -->--- ---".^ ^1^ Apollo Korzeniowski, realizing the strain on his young son, decided to send Conrad back to Nowofastow "in order that he might lead the normal life of a child of nine 8 with companions of his own age." It was during the sum­ mer in Nowofastow that Conrad first saw the seaside at Odessa an event which would influence his whole life. Al­ though he enjoyed the stay with his Uncle Thaddeus, he became homesick for his father; and in October, his grand- 9 mother took him back to Apollo at Chernikhov. Neither Joseph nor Apollo was in good health; and on December 2, 1867, the two were granted permission to leave Northern Russia for Algiers and Madeira. The father and son never got as far as Algiers and Madeira, but they did enjoy visit­ ing in Galicia, a province in Poland. In February of 1869, Apollo and Joseph moved to Cracow where Joseph was sent to day school and where Apollo was to work on the editorial staff of Kraj; but Apollo died with Tuberculosis before he could do any work. Joseph Conrad, now orphaned at the age of eleven, had not experienced a normal home life nor had he had much formal schooling. Shortly after his father's death, Mrs. Ibid., p. 16. ^Baines, op. cit., pp. 20-21. ^Document issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs 2 December 1867. Jagellon Library MS 6391. ^^Baines, op. cit., pp. 21, 23. '—^-:-:'—-- • --" • 6 Bobrowski, his maternal grandmother put Conrad under the educational guidance of a Mrs. Georgeon. Her school was moved to Franciszkanska Street where Conrad met the Taube family, a significant event in that it provided an oppor­ tunity for his first love affair. He was next lodged in a boarding-house for orphans where he had his second love affair with Tekla, the owner's daughter. There is some confusion about Conrad's references to the two affairs in his writing: in the Author's Note to Nostromo, Conrad re­ fers to his first love—probably Janita Taube; and in a cancelled opening to The Arrow of Gold, he is most likely referring to Tekla Syroczynska. A part of the cancelled opening to The Arrow of Gold is especially noteworthy since it is considered autobiographical and since it contains in- fluences from his Polish love affairs.1 2 Conrad wrote but then cancelled the following passage: Of that time he [M.