Cursory Thoughts on Fetish & Its Relations to Modernism & Empire

A fetish is a synecdoche, being a mere objective indication of something much larger than itself. A fetishistic engagement allows the individual to apprehend, perhaps as libidinous cathaxis, that which has been barred from a more immediate experience, either by mental cordons set up within his own psyche or by what can be perceived to be external factors acting through his psyche to structure certain restrictions disallowing contact with the said experiences. Thus, the fetish may be said to be a condition of repression. This relation between fetish (as synecdoche) and repression may represent an approach in the understanding of Modernism and its relation to Western Imperialism.

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Much has been said about the “resolutions” of Conrad’s narrative elements in Heart of Darkness, and I believe much of the same will be and can be said of Jim. As far as these two texts are concerned, the opacity of Conrad’s narrative is not so much the opacity of a who-dunnit, but rather that of a how-dunnit, by which is meant within Conrad’s narratives a definite investment in character psychology: Conrad’s texts are loquacious texts, employing the communicability of Marlow as storyteller to render portraits of experience. But any attempt at psychologizing is essentially flawed insofar as, within the limits of hermeneutics, any portrait is essentially an extension of a pentimento cast over by a trompe-l’oeil: complications arises out of the locquacity; and words reveal themselves as tools of evasion, rather than that of revelation – though the fine line between evasion and revelation is subtle, and what would be revealed, and what is hidden, will make itself known to the reader depending on where he stands in relation to the aspect of the portrait he wishes to see. The fetish, if you will.

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