Silence and Secrets in Joseph Conrad’s Victory

Abstract

The essay begins with silence, proceeds through the unspeakable, and ends with secrets. The approach to these topics comes from two directions. The first derives from postcolonialism; the second from gender studies. The overall approach is historically based. _x000D_ Victory is a novel full of voices—in particular, there is the oral community of Europeans who gossip about Heyst. Thus it might seem perverse to talk of silence. _x000D_ The first part of the essay is concerned with those who are silenced, those who are _x000D_ marginalised by the European discourse whose circulation constitutes the novel, the _x000D_ disregarded local people and the disregarded Chinese. The second part of the essay starts from censorship and addresses the treatment of sexuality (and particularly homosexuality) in the novel. The third part addresses what is apparent and what is concealed in the text. It then discusses a particular textual secret: the novel’s relation to the ‘Jack the Ripper’ case.