Kültürel Çoraklıkta İkililik: Batılı Gözler Altında

Yıl 2010, Sayı: 24, 285 - 290, 01.08.2010

Cumhur Yılmaz Madran

Öz

Bu çalışma Joseph Conrad’ın BatılıGözler Altında eserinde Conrad’ın ikili anlatım yöntem denemelerini ideolojik ve kültürel ilişkilerin bir yansımasıolarak incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Romanın geçtiği yer ve sosyal çerçevesi sadece Rusya değil, aynızamanda İsviçre’nin Geneva kentidir. Romanın anlatıcısıkendisini Batıdünyasının bir ürünü olarak takdim eder ve ayrıca da Rus dünyasıiçin bir alternatif olarak görülebilmektedir. Roman ikili bir anlatım tarzısergilemektedir. Romanın kahramanıRazumov, Genova’da yaşayan ve romanıkendi bakışaçısıyla birinci ağızdan anlatan bir İngilizce öğretmeni olan anlatıcının çifti olarak görev yapmaktadır. Conrad’ın Doğulu gözlerin karşıtıolarak Batılıbir anlatıcıyıtartışmalıbir şekilde kullanmasıBatı’nın 20. yüzyıl politikasının belirgin bir özelliğidir. Algılanamaz bir dünyada insanoğlunun ikilemini ifade ederken, Conrad Batı’yıçorak kalmışbir yer olarak tartışmaktadır. Conrad’ın Batıkavramınıele alışbiçimi Batıkonusundaki politik düşüncelerini ifade edişbiçimi kadar karmaşıktır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

İkili Anlatım, BatılıGözler Altında, Kültürel Çoraklık, Doğu, İdeoloji.

The Duplicity in the Cultural Wasteland: Under Western Eyes

Öz

The present analysis is intended to shed light on Joseph Conrad’s experiments with double narration in Under Western Eyes as a reflection of ideological and cultural relationship. The social context of the novel is not simply or primarily Russian, but Western, English as well. The narrator introduces himself as a production of the Western world and can also be seen as an alternative to the Russian world. The novel produces doubling narration. Razumov acts as a double of the first person narrator, an English teacher of languages who lives in Geneva. Conrad’s controversial use of a narrator, Western as opposed to Eastern eyes forms a characteristic feature of twentieth-century politics of “the West”. Conrad, while expressing man’s predicament in an incomprehensible world, argues the West as a wasteland. What the narrator implies as the “inscrutable” other is also true about himself. Conrad’s conception of “Western” is complex enough to expose Conrad’s political ideas about the West. The duplicity, a certain doubleness characterizes Under Western Eyes. The novel invites its readers into its complex narrative body and confronts them with a series of shifting perspectives through duplicity. The text is composed of interdependent duplicities. These duplicities create many question marks in the readers’ mind. They force reader to develop new perceptions and points of view. The duplicity in narration can be attributed to Conrad’s own split personality. This split in his identity shows its existence in his novels through narrative technique. His personal perspective of the things Russian gives us some clues about his disturbing and ambivalent feelings about Russia and the Russian people. Conrad makes use of a narrator as a tool for explaining this dichotomy which is the main source of the complex and complicated narration in the novel. Such kind of scrutiny requires a narrator through which the author will be able to constitute a process of self-knowledge. The idea of the other is a tool in identifying the writer’s suppressed feelings. As a self-conscious writer, Joseph Conrad is aware of the dichotomies in his own nature which divide his nature. His usage of the narrator, an elderly Englishman, an unnamed teacher of languages, who has a very limited perspective, and who depends upon some documents, creates some type of alienation and detachment. Through such detachment, Conrad is able to direct his criticism of “cynicism”, “mysticisim”, and corroding “simplicity”. The reader of the novel comes across double narration which comes from not only Razumov’s diary but also the narrator’s reflections and ideas, which blunders the readers’ minds. The reader is offered a Russian story which is filtered through a Western consciousness who claims to have a limited point of view. The duplicity in the narrator is much more perceptible when the narrator functions as if he were an omniscient narrator. The narrator’s dichotomies, inconsistencies, reservation are indications of duplicity in his mind, which is closely in line with many dichotomies, inconsistencies in Conrad. The narrator explicitly functions as Conrad’s spokesman in order to expose the duplicity in his own mind. The hero of the novel, Razumov has many things in common with the first person narrator, an old English language teacher. Not only the first person narrator but also Razumov are lonely figures who are reticent and who have an affinity with the West. Razumov who is a diary writer is the double of the narrator. Both of them, Razumov and an old language teacher can be seen as the writers of the fictional worlds, such as the novel and the diary. Razumov’s diary is the main source of the narrator’s fiction. It functions as the double of the novel just as Razumov is the double of the narrator. The narrative doubleness in the novel is proof the doubleness in the writer’s nature. While Razumov’s diary is the only medium through which we learn something about him, the novel is the only medium the readers will be able to learn something about the author. The narrator serves the double function: on the one hand he narrates Razumov’s diary and on the other hand, it is possible to learn his observations and comments which inform the reader about the existence of two perspectives of Razumov. The narrative is composed of two interdependent narrations, inner and outer narrative circles. Through these two narrative circles, Conrad catches the opportunity of viewing life from two different perspectives. Conrad’s narrator points out the dichotomy in Conrad’s split personality. The fragmented nature of narration is a clear indication of the fragmentation in Conrad. Duplicity as one of the major themes of the novel indicates the fragmentation as a major theme of the twentieth century. The fragmented nature of the narrator, the fragmented narration and the fragmented characters in the novel are great obstacles in understanding the novel and in creating wholeness in the minds

Anahtar Kelimeler

Double Narration, Under Western Eyes, Cultural Wasteland, East, Ideology

Kaynakça

• Armstrong, Paul B. (1998) Cultural Diffrences in Conrad and James: Under Western Eyes and The Ambassadors. New York: Colombia University Press.
• Bennet, Carl D. (1991) Joseph Conrad. New York: Continuum.
• Billy, Ted. (1987) Critical Essays on Joseph Conrad. Boston: G. K. Hall and Co.
• Conrad, Joseph. (1980) Under Western Eyes. London: Penguin.
• Eagleton, Terry. (1970) Exiles and Emigres: Studies in Modern Literature. London: Verso.
• Goonetilleke, R. A. (1990) Joseph Conrad: Beyond Culture and Background. London: Macmillan.
• Najder, Zdzislaw. (1983) Joseph Conrad: A Chronicle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Orr, Leonard and Ted Billy. (1983) A Joseph Conrad Companion. London: Greenwood Press.
• Stape, J. H. (1996) The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Vulcan, Daphne Erdinast. (1991) Joseph Conrad and the Modern Temper. Oxford: Clarendon Press.