Silence, Space and Absence in Conrad's Works

Download or read book Silence, Space and Absence in Conrad's Works written by John G. Peters and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-11-13 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book considers the relationship between sound and silence in the works of Joseph Conrad, along with their ties to Western and non-Western space. Throughout Conrad’s works, a pattern emerges where Western space is associated with sound and non-Western space is associated with silence; similarly, Western space is portrayed as full of objects and activity, whereas non-Western space is portrayed as empty. As these tales progress, though, Conrad’s characters embark on transformational journeys that cause them to reassess the world they live in and sometimes even the nature of the universe. These journeys invariably occur through encountering non-Western space, and during the course of these journeys, the dichotomy between Western space, perceived as replete with sound and activity, and non-Western space, empty of such, blurs such that the fullness of the West is revealed to be simply a surface hiding the emptiness beneath. In the end, both Western and non-Western space are revealed to be absences, as the absence of sound becomes a correlative for the emptiness of space and the emptiness of space becomes a metonym for the cosmological emptiness of nothingness.