Liberalism and Lord Jim genre, narrative, and irony

My paper will examine how in Lord Jim, a triangulation of class, race,

and gender enables a critique of foundational notions of liberal selfactualisation. This critique relates not only to liberalisms belief in the
individuals ability to manifest identity, but also to its actualisation as
a humanist, progressive politics. The novels colonial setting
highlights the deep connections between liberalism and imperialism
observed by Uday Singh Mehta (1999), and sharpens this engagement
by the representation of liberalisms civilising mission in particular,
and also its deconstruction, because the violence which undoes
progress emerges not from the savage exterior, but from within. This
is accompanied by a parallel deconstruction of individuality based on
an awareness of the unconscious as a powerful force with social and
biological origins.
I will explore how in Lord Jim, political insights are enmeshed
with the novels style, and in particular its narrative and generic
features. On the one hand, by subordinating a range of voices to
Marlows white, male, privileged narration, the novels structure
internalises the inequities of colonial life while also placing them in an
ironic frame. On the other hand, its engagement with realism,
bildungsroman, and romance creates an alternative frame that further
ironises the liberal imperial project. Finally, I will relate this to
Conrads paradoxical alienation and commitment (Watt, 1964), and
consider how in his withering irony there might also be the possibility
for the partial recuperation of liberal progressivism and identity.

Jay Parker
University of Leeds