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English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

2018

Women

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Conrad's Erotic Women, Joyce Wexler Jul 2018

Conrad's Erotic Women, Joyce Wexler

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is time to correct Joseph Conrad's reputation as a writer who falls short when the subject is women or sex. Praised for his ethical, political, and psychological insight, he is pitied for his love scenes. Writing about The Rescue in 1945, Walter F. Wright generalized, "Conrad usually had trouble with his women characters when they came into the foreground of a story. The themes which he best understood could be illustrated very well through the lives of men" (1945, 216). In 1956 Thomas Moser reinforced Wright's judgment, arguing that the quality of Conrad's later work declined because he tried …