The Portrait of a Father in Conrad’s Victory
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It is a perennial subject in literature to explore whether a son outgrows his father’s psychic mastery over him. In Victory, Conrad foregrounds this theme by utilizing as a key signifier the portrait of the father of the protagonist, Axel Heyst. The father’s pessimistic, skeptical philosophy of existential detachment from life left an indelible imprint on the son’s mind in his malleable years. Viability of the paternal injunction to remain aloof from the world’s bustle undergoes a threatening test with Heyst’s involvement in Morrison’s affairs and far more demandingly when Heyst meets Lena. In the course of the narrative development, the portrait of Heyst Sr. on the wall of the Samburan bungalow comes to represent the father’s overpowering hold on the son’s mind. Presumably ever watching Heyst, the portrait assumes the role of the Lacanian Name-of-the-Father that delivers the prohibitive “no” against any violation of the paternal ban. Its watchfulness comes to a state of high tension as Lena plays the part of the objet petit a as object of desire. Trapped in the conflict between interdiction and desire, between the two powers represented by the portrait and Lena respectively, Heyst betrays self-division and prolonged hesitancy. His equivocal situation renders ambiguous the ultimate meaning of the “victory” Conrad’s novel deals with. This uncertainty illustrates the ambiguous Conrad at his best. The portrait of Heyst père works as a principal signifier in the genesis of the textual ambiguity by both determining and unsettling the thematic meaning of Victory.
Abstract
It is a perennial subject in literature to explore whether a son outgrows his father’s psychic mastery over him. In Victory, Conrad foregrounds this theme by utilizing as a key signifier the portrait of the father of the protagonist, Axel Heyst. The father’s pessimistic, skeptical philosophy of existential detachment from life left an indelible imprint on the son’s mind in his malleable years. Viability of the paternal injunction to remain aloof from the world’s bustle undergoes a threatening test with Heyst’s involvement in Morrison’s affairs and far more demandingly when Heyst meets Lena. In the course of the narrative development, the portrait of Heyst Sr. on the wall of the Samburan bungalow comes to represent the father’s overpowering hold on the son’s mind. Presumably ever watching Heyst, the portrait assumes the role of the Lacanian Name-of-the-Father that delivers the prohibitive “no” against any violation of the paternal ban. Its watchfulness comes to a state of high tension as Lena plays the part of the objet petit a as object of desire. Trapped in the conflict between interdiction and desire, between the two powers represented by the portrait and Lena respectively, Heyst betrays self-division and prolonged hesitancy. His equivocal situation renders ambiguous the ultimate meaning of the “victory” Conrad’s novel deals with. This uncertainty illustrates the ambiguous Conrad at his best. The portrait of Heyst père works as a principal signifier in the genesis of the textual ambiguity by both determining and unsettling the thematic meaning of Victory.
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