Victory in Nature: An Ecocritical Reading of Joseph Conrad's Novel

There are numerous reasons for this common failure to acknowledge the ecological basis of the human condition. Many have seen this as a deep cultural flaw of Western civilization, flowing out of the concept of the 'domination of nature,' the idea that nature exists to serve humans and to be a servant to humans. But a large part of the answer as to why contemporary society refuses to recognize the full human dependence on nature undoubtedly has to do with the expansionist logic of a capitalist system that makes the accumulation of wealth in the form of capital the supreme end of society.

John Bellamy Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism

There is a particular node in Marxist thought that every ecosocialist critic comes to at one point or another—man's ontological relationship to nature. Ecosocialism posits man as nature, and a part of nature, and for this paper, I would like to bring this ontic orientation to ecocriticism through a reading of Joseph Conrad's Victory. I don't think, and I don't want to suggest that Conrad's text provides an explicit critique of capitalism and capitalist commodification of nature. However, Conrad does recognize man's domination of nature as problematic, and puts this notion at risk. This position of domination is only possible by positing an unbridgeable dualism of man and nature. In the novel, Conrad erodes the distinction between man and nature, and reimagines man's relationship to nature by establishing the conditions for the possibility of a radically different ontology.

Foster's statement quoted above emerges out of the tradition of Marxist ecology or ecosocialism. Until the publication of Howard L. Parson's Marx and Engels on Ecology, Marxist socio-economic theory was read, and still is to a great extent, as having nothing to do with ecology. Parson's text changed that, except it didn't. Theorists, philosophers, social critics, and environmentalists such as Martin O'Connor, James O'Connor, Paul Burkett, Juan Martínez Alier, and James Bellamy Foster among others, have picked up Parson's argument, but with the exception of Burkett and Alier, these individuals have for the most part neglected to do anything besides posit Marx's or Marxist thought as ecological. Consequently, Marxist ecology has little or no effect on contemporary environmental studies except to occasionally point out the inherent problemof attributing value to nature.

The real problem with Marxist thought, is not the integrity of the theory, but that the proponents of Marxism are necessarily always on the defensive. Western, particularly American, social politics too easily writes off the radical left with the fall of communist Russia and posits it as the realization, and the only possible realization, of Marxist theory. Consequently, any emergent left theorist must always actively resist this Orientalization of Western thought.¹ Despite incredible opposition, ecosocialism has proceeded to develop, and although its reach has not extended far beyond academic institutions certain nodes have emerged that prove useful to other fields of thought.

In Radical Ecology, Carolyn Merchant draws attention to Marxism as it is useful ecologically. Her text locates the socio-political agendas of contemporary environmental movements within a global context. Although her intent is to identify these movements as social actors, Merchant does not stop short at evaluating their agendas and the implications of their activism. Throughout the text she implicitly aligns herself with ecofeminism, and delineates her position by articulating different trends of ecofeminism, and critiquing those trends. Within a section devoted to cultural ecofeminismshe states that

it does not deal with the problems of poverty and racism experienced by millions of women around the world. In contrast to cultural ecofeminism, the social and socialist strands of ecofeminism are based on a socioeconomic analysis that treats nature and human nature as socially constructed, rooted in an analysis of race, class, and gender.

(Merchant 194)

She continues, "Social ecofeminism advocates the liberation of women through overturning economic and social hierarchies that turn all aspects of life into a market society that today even invades the womb" (Merchant 194). Although Merchant is clearly...