"Something Else Besides": Uttering the Unutterable in Lord Jim

Conrad's fictions' exploration, and dramatization, of the inefficacy of language has been well noted and interrogated by literary critics. In the narratives, language's limitations are exposed as a result of the narrators' and characters' quests to know the world and to understand the truths of conscious experience, along with the validity of sensations and perceptions. Although linguistic issues are brought to the fore, it is a consequence of epistemological, metaphysical, and ontological concerns rather than a contemplation of language in itself. In this article, I want to consider the issue of the limits of language by focusing particularly on the role of silence in Lord Jim. Whilst attention has been paid to the socio-political significance of silence in Conrad, and its potential to signal sites of oppression and disarticulation, little consideration has been given to the status of the motif in his novels in relation to their epistemological and ontological philosophical inquiries.

Many of the silences of Lord Jim are inextricably related to a perception of language as inadequate. Marlow and Jim repeatedly find themselves stuck for words, stuttering and mumbling, and consequently reliant upon the expressive possibilities of silence. As language falls short, silence comes to hold an important place in the novel, signalling an inexpressible realm which is, potentially, full of meaning and value. Susan Sontag's claim that "as the prestige of language falls, that of silence rises" seems pertinent in this context (21). The construal of language as a limited and contingent form, incapable of transporting meaning and disloyal to intention, leads to a transcendental conception of silence in Lord Jim, it is indicative of a hope of discovering a more authentic signifying mode. Concurrent with such linguistic scepticism is a feeling of loss; dissatisfaction with language is not the same as its outright condemnation. A literary move towards silence—viewed either as an inexorable consequence of language's inadequacy or a signifying mode chosen as a way of escaping contingency—paradoxically has the effect of elevating language itself. The motif is accredited with many of the functions traditionally presupposed of language, such as unmediated expression and self-presence. Consequently, it is conceived to be an alternative to language and never an ideal mode of communication. The novel's combined investigation into the deficiency of language and the expressive potential of silence functions to produce something like nostalgia for the word.

Here, Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy, as articulated in his Tractatus and "Lecture on Ethics," serves as a constructive heuristic tool. It yields a vocabulary by which to reconsider Lord Jim's exploration of language's inefficacy along with its commitment to the expressive potential of silence. Although Conrad and Wittgenstein wrote in different cultural and historical contexts and had very different agendas, they have much in common. They are both attentive to problems of knowledge and ethics, especially the relation between the particular and the absolute, and they variously invest in the conception of an inexpressible ("mystical") realm which can be intuited but not linguistically transmitted.¹ The resonances between their texts function not only to elucidate language's relation to silence and the possibility of uttering the unutterable in Lord Jim, but, more generally, to draw out something of the nature and behavior of silence and, in turn, its impact upon human subjects. Lord Jim's anxieties about the value of indirect forms of communication are brought to the fore by considering them in the light of Wittgenstein's philosophical engagement with the signifying potential of silence. While for Wittgenstein indirect expression can provide a successful strategy for ensuring the transmission of a shared set of meanings and values, for Conrad it generates all sorts of epistemological and ethical problems. As a mode of signification in Lord Jim, silence, induced by encounters with the unutterable, often signals the desperation experienced by individuals failing to reach each other and be understood.

The characters in Lord Jim are positioned on the brink of the known, and encounter or intuit impalpable, mystical realities situated beyond the limits of articulable experience. The failure of language to express the mystical leads...