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  • A Conflict of Values: Alienation and Commitment in the Novels of Joseph Conrad and William Faulkner
  • J. Gill Holland
Grazyna Branny , A Conflict of Values: Alienation and Commitment in the Novels of Joseph Conrad and William FaulknerKraków: Wydawnictwo SPONSOR, 1997, 198 pp.

Grazyna Branny's study has been praised in Poland but has received less recognition in the United States. Its new arguments deserve to be taken into consideration in the West by scholars of Faulkner and Conrad and by comparatists. The critical framework of alienation and commitment and an "oxymoronic" balance of both open up a new methodology in the field of comparative literature.

The survey of previous scholarship in the opening chapter, "Comparative Conrad and Faulkner Criticism," along with a bibliography of works in English and Polish, is extensive and thorough. In the main body of the book a selective focus on Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and The Sound and The Fury and on Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim allows for deep exploration. Characters such as Caddy and Shreve, Marlow and Lord Jim take on new dimensions of complexity.

Branny's reading of alienation and unconscious commitment in Conrad is complicated but cogent. Kurtz becomes a more profound character under Granny's analytical eye. Notable is the reciprocity between Kurtz and Marlow explored in the penetrating chapter entitled "Verbal and Moral Commitment in Heart of Darkness: Marlow and Kurtz." Branny's argument is full of subtlety: "In Marlow's oxymoronic comment on his lie, affirmation is derived from denegation, i.e., from the fact that his lie is not followed by any negative consequences. Moreover, it is a lie and not the truth that offers hope here" (54).

In Faulkner as well, Branny's distinctions between different kinds of commitment, including subverbal and unconscious commitment, and her recognition of the "oxymoronic" dimension enable her to take us down a critical path toward enlightenment. Her intelligent reading of The Sound and the Fury finds positive commitment in the face of darkness—without understating the threat of this darkness.

Such balance is of course a central challenge in the darker works of both Conrad and Faulkner. The strategy of the "oxymoronic" seems to me to be a significant critical step forward in Conrad and Faulkner scholarship. Of special interest for [End Page 151] the comparatist is the fact that such an "oxymoronic" dimension is a major link between the two.

J. Gill Holland
Davidson College
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