Conrad's Secret Sharer as the Pole within: The Polish Father as Doppelgänger
Conrad's Secret Sharer as the Pole within: The Polish Father as Doppelgänger
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Date
1996
Authors
Strohecker, Dorothy Pula
Advisor
Kleine, Donald W.
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Abstract
"Conrad' s Secret Sharer as the Pole Within: The
Polish Father as Doppelgänger" establishes an As If
hypothesis that presents "The Secret Sharer" as a
paradigm for reading the Conradian canon. Although other
critics have written on Conrad 's father figure, his
Polishness, and the double, my essay assumes a combined
methodology based on biographical, psychological,
symbolic, and doppelgänger strategies for setting up my
thesis and text decoding. The first three chapters
provide the background and methodology to be applied to
"The Secret Sharer" explication in the last two chapters.
Beginning with Chapter I, "Conrad's Polishness and
the Dual Polish Father Figure," the biographical and
cultural basis for Conrad's Polish matrix and his
ambivalence as "Homo Duplex" are explored. Chapter II,
"Conrad and the Fictional Father," reviews the
proliferation of Conradian father figures, seeing the
Lacanian metaphor of the father in its conflict over law
and desire as significant in Conrad's generation of themes of crisis over identity involving betrayal, guilt,
and questions of fidelity to paternal ideals. In
addition, the father is discussed as "symbol" in
preparation for equating the Polish father, Apollo, with
the doppelgänger. Chapter III, "Conrad's Symbolic
Approach to Fiction: The Double as Symbol: Motifs of
the Doppelgänger" stresses Conrad's claim that all great
art is symbolic. The double is examined as symbol of the
unconscious in its many doppelgänger motifs.
Finally, in Chapters IV and V, "The Secret Sharer as
Pole Within: The Doppelgänger as Apollo, the Polish
Father" Parts I and II, concepts from preceding chapters
are used to formulate the thesis for "The Secret Sharer"
as paradigm for interpreting Conrad's fiction. In this
hypothetical approach, there is no attempt to be
definitive and no intention to be dogmatic; the only
purpose is to explore cognitive possibilities of meaning
to enrich, not reduce, the close reading of "The Secret
Sharer" and provide a paradigm of thesis generation for
Conrad's major fiction.