Abstract

Joseph Conrad recognized the impossibility of achieving the objective truth late 19th- and early 20th-century society sought. Throughout his writings, he rejects attempts to universalize truth and demonstrates that human experience is radically individual. Both his philosophical concerns and narrative techniques point to an epistemology that sees perception and knowledge originating from a fixed source in space and time. ;The initial chapter defines impressionism and outlines its relationship to the cultural context. During the 19th century, science achieved a privileged position. Many felt it provided a certainty not found elsewhere. Impressionists had a unique relationship to science. Their work is both a product of and a reaction against science. Their methodology is essentially scientific in its attempt to reproduce accurately the observer's perception; at the same time, they recognized that perception is always mediated by a human perceiver. Rather than the universal representation of realism, impressionism reproduces an individual representation existing within the context of subject, object, and surrounding circumstances. ;The central chapters discuss perception of objects, subjects, and time and their relationship to knowledge throughout Conrad's writings. In addition, I provide extended readings of Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, and The Secret Agent that show how Conrad employs impressionist renderings of individual perception to question universal claims of western civilization. Perception in Conrad is an individual phenomenon, not because it is located only in the perceiver but rather because of the blurring of the conventional subject/object dichotomy. The perceiver alters the perceived, as the perceived alters the perceiver. Conrad investigates human subjectivity in this interaction between perceiver and perceived, while at the same time questioning society's absolute foundation. ;My conclusion discusses how relativity of perception, knowledge, and western civilization brings up problems of epistemological solipsism and ethical anarchy. Unwilling to accept either conclusion, Conrad looks to the source of this relativity, the individuality of human subjectivity, for a solution. Since human existence is the only certainty in Conrad's world, the confirmation of others concerning perceptual data and ethical laws provides an escape from solipsism and ethical anarchy