ABSTRACT

The period of Joseph Conrad's writing, which Chance and Victory are most commonly seen to represent, has been characterized critically by its engagement with women. In the opening of Victory Conrad combines Nostromo's interest in the social impact of natural resources as material commodities with Chance's interest in speculative finance. In the tradition of philosophical romance Victory uncovers ideology as ideology, not only in commerce, nor also simply in the private world of thoughts and emotions, but finally in language and narrative itself. Romance is particularly adept at revealing the ideological nature of ideology because it 'frankly avow its fictitious character'. Conrad allows both the mental and the spectacular nature of metamorphosis to be present in his descriptions, reinforcing the latter, in particular, through a tendency to the grotesque and the gothic, as well as through specific comparisons to performing animals.