Introduction
Fiction is defined as “an imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented” or “a literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact” (“Fiction”, 2000). However, fiction can often illustrate truths better than fact and to a much greater degree. Literature often provides a useful tool for the study and understanding of complicated concepts in a variety of fields.
In addition to helping bring concerns to the surface, literature examines multiple aspects of a given phenomenon from a ‘lived’ perspective – that is, the characters must experience the event as it occurs, the action must be believable and the results must follow logically. Social theorists and academics have often turned to literature as a means of examining the affects of such events as colonialism and cultural hybridity which each played a tremendous role in the formation of our concept of the ‘other’ and therefore contributed to our concept of nationality.
As these concepts are difficult to define or explain, literature provides examples and analogies that bridge gaps in understanding as well as poses new questions to be answered. It also helps us to understand how these ideas were being formed and reinforced within the society in which these texts were written. With an understanding of colonialism and what is meant by the ‘other’ as it is explored through the work of Bram Stoker and Joseph Conrad, it becomes clear why the concept of other is so integral to our understanding of self and our society.
Colonialism and the ‘Other’
The concept of colonialism is defined in different ways by different people depending upon the context in which it is being applied. “Colonialism is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another” (Kohn, 2006). This fairly standard definition makes it difficult to distinguish colonialism from the modern day practice of imperialism, which has many of the same features and effects as its earlier predecessor. “The British appropriation of ‘colony’ retains inflections of the Roman empire while propounding ardently on Britain’s unique involvement in imperialism.
Hence ‘colonialism’ attains an historical specificity, noting particularly the impact it had and continues to have on all societies across the world” (Yew, 2002). For purposes of this discussion, colonialism is characterized by the placing of European settlers on foreign territories with the intention to control the area and profit from its possibilities. Writers of the colonial periods in every European country involved in the practice continued to point out the negative effects colonialism was having on the native populations. As settlers from Europe began arriving, the quality of life of the natives steadily declined.
Colonialism, as originally practiced by the Spanish, was quickly used as a legitimization of early enslavement of the indigenous Indians as it was seen as the best way of ‘civilizing’ them and spreading Christianity. “Members of the Dominican order in particular noted the hypocrisy of enslaving the Indians because of their alleged barbarity while practicing a form of conquest, warfare, and slavery that reduced the indigenous population of Hispaniola from 250,000 to 15,000 in two decades of Spanish rule” (Kohn, 2006). This criticism illustrates how the concept of the ‘other’ as it was experienced through the process of colonialism helped to define the colonizing country as dominant, strong and ultimately preferable.
During the Victorian era, a period filled with the concept of colonization, society was encountering many new cultures and ways of life. Rather than appreciating them for what they offered – differing perspectives, alternate means of solving common societal issues or a way of life that eliminated some of the more common social ills experienced in the newly industrialized societies – colonizing nations sought to overcome these ‘others’ and force them into a worldview in keeping with their own (Tocqueville, 2001).
When this wasn’t possible, as in dealing with faraway nations in the Orient, inventions were made of the bits and pieces of information that came back which defined entire sections of the world according to what was imagined about them rather than on true accounts of them. This was not an unusual concept for many as it was a common practice in defining the European and English feminine (Geary, 2002). By contextualizing the world in terms of ‘us’ as in members first of the Western culture and second as members of a particular nation as naturally superior to ‘them’ as in the colonized or foreign nations, national identities were formed.
Comparisons were frequently made between the ‘other’ and the self, meaning the dominant culture of the colonizing nation which is, in this case, predominantly England, that placed the self at an aggrandized level and the ‘other’ at a level quite inferior. In other words, in encountering the ‘other’, the colonizing nation reacted in a way that demonized them, reduced them to second-class humans and thereby contained them within a less-threatening context while boosting the self to new levels of superiority.
It is perhaps most educative to look first to the work of philosopher Edward Said for an explanation of the ‘other’ as he places it within the context of Orientalism, a term he used to define the way in which the English-speaking world sought to contain images of the Eastern nations within a single, non-threatening image. In his book entitled Orientalism (1979), Said illustrates how the Western world devised a conception of the Orient that rendered it innocuous to their way of living.
Everything was made to seem backward, simple and non-threatening by placing it in the context of a passive action. For example, the silks and fine fabrics that originated there were not due to greater technological skill, but rather were the result of a rare creature accidentally found in that region that the soft, simple people living there took advantage of in order to make delicate clothing in keeping with their delicate way of life.
A people who must wear soft silks as a means of not chafing their delicate skin is not a threatening people to the Western nations. However, when people actually started traveling to the Orient, they found not a simple backward mono-cultured people, but instead a wide variety of ‘orientals’ with vast differences in lifestyles from one region to another that were sometimes not so different from their own and at other times much more advanced. These advancements were surprising because up to this point, Westerners had only thought and read about the Orient as a backwards nation, soft and weak compared with their own. Said argues that the concept of the Orient was purposefully established within the public discourse as a means of bringing this region under the control of the empire, virtually subduing it by subduing its voices and belittling its achievements (Said, 1979).
This conversation highlights the treatment of the other that can be found within the literature of the Victorian period specifically as it applies to those of other nationalities, not necessarily just of the Orient and not necessarily regarding individuals or societies that existed far away.
Bruce Bawer (2002) illustrates how the concept of the ‘other’ existed within the general culture as it concerned those who lived within it as well as those who lived without it. To illustrate his point, he discusses the life of Edward Said, the philosopher who helped break open the concept of the other and bring it to worldwide attention with the publication of Orientalism. Although Said was instrumental in bringing the concept of the ‘other’ into philosophical discussion, this was done from the context of a Westerner attempting to understand or relate to the idea of people who lived far away, in other countries where social differences were easy to see between the two nations.
Bawer brings the context of the conversation back down to the individual level by pointing out how Edward Said’s life as an Oriental living in the Western world reflected the concepts of the other that he’d written about. At the same time, Bawer helps to pull out some important points about this concept from Said’s books and other writings. “Ultimately, Said’s thesis [in Orientalism] amounts to a truism: that people look at the ‘other’ through their own eyes, and tend to judge alien cultures by their own culture’s standards” (Bawer, 2002: 621).
Throughout his criticism of Said’s work, Bawer continues to illustrate how the concept of the ‘other’ that is brought up by Said has worked to suppress and demonize cultures that are somehow different from that of the Western nations with the distinction that these ‘outside’ cultures do not necessarily have to exist in some geographically distant region, but can instead exist within and between the spaces of the Western world, such as in areas where numerous people of a particular nationality or belief system live – areas populated predominantly by Jews, Africans, Chinese or any other group that can be named as such – reinforcing concepts of nationality and culture.
With a basic understanding of what is meant by the ‘other’, as that which does not fit within the same definition as the self, it remains unclear why this concept should be considered frightening or threatening. This is the subject of Marshall Berman’s (1982) work. In describing the modern human, Berman says “they are moved at once by a will to change – to transform both themselves and their world – and by a terror of disorientation and disintegration, of life falling apart” (Berman, 1982).
Through this statement, it is easy to see the conflicting emotions of an individual undergoing change of any kind. This can include the necessity of examining the beliefs and customs one has grown up with. It is perhaps especially because of this necessity that the idea of the other is threatening. No longer can the world be considered stable and hinged on a single, all-pervading truth once one encounters someone with an equally valid but differing viewpoint. Yet, if one hoped to conduct business, socialize or interact in any way with the people of the world, an attempt towards understanding or accepting of these other ideas was necessary. As Berman illustrates within the pages of his book, this was an unavoidable aspect of life in the Victorian era of expansion and modernization.
“To be modern is to live a life of paradox and contradiction. It is to be overpowered by the immense bureaucratic organizations that have the power to control and often to destroy all communities, values, lives; and yet to be undeterred in our determination to face these forces, to fight to change their world and make it our own. It is to be both revolutionary and conservative: alive to new possibilities for experience and adventure, frightened by the nihilistic depths to which so many modern adventures lead” (Berman, 1982).
This quote also alludes to the changes that were occurring within the Western society at this period in time. Many of the old values were shifting as factories rose and cities were built. Women were gaining new freedoms and the old aristocracy, with its life of leisure and waste, was slowly falling into disrepute as enterprising and hard-working individuals from the lower classes began to make names for themselves, building up a middle class that valued work above play and based wealth upon monetary measures rather than the size of one’s property holdings. The resulting clash of values also constituted a meeting between the self and the other, as landed gentry struggled to come to grips with the new boldness of the rising middle class.
While the impact of industrialization may not have been immediately understood in these terms, the idea of the other, already having been established through the age of expansion, was ideally suited to addressing the issues that arose in this period of urbanization. Anne McClintock (1995) argues in her book that imperialism invented the concept of the other as a necessary means of self-definition. “The invention of race in the urban metropoles … became central not only to the self-definition of the middle class but also to the policing of the ‘dangerous classes’: the working class, the Irish, Jews, prostitutes, feminists, gays and lesbians, criminals, the militant crowd and so on” (5).
To help struggle against this rising tide of the ‘other’ as it became increasingly understood to apply to a wide variety of individuals who had been previously thought to be merely a part of the crowded self, it was necessary to combat definitions of other with more flattering and concrete definitions of the self. “The cult of domesticity was not simply a trivial and fleeting irrelevance, belonging properly in the private, ‘natural’ realm of the family. Rather, I argue that the cult of domesticity was a crucial, if concealed, dimension of male as well as female identities – shifting and unstable as these were” (5).
While many in the postmodern society have taken to identifying the other in terms of race, gender and class, McClintock argues that these “are not distinct realms of experience, existing in splendid isolation from each other; nor can they be simply yoked together retrospectively like armatures of Lego. Rather, they come into existence in and through relation to each other – if in contradictory and conflictual ways” (5).
In other words, the concept of the other cannot exist without there first being a concept of the self. It is further not something that can be defined in clear-cut, definite structures but is rather a shifting, amorphous thing that only becomes revealed as it interacts and chafes against concepts of self. The other is, therefore, found in anything that differs from the norm as it is understood by the individual at any particular moment in time.
In this discussion about the current understanding of colonialism and the issues it raised concerning how we define ourselves, McClintock attempts to (1992) make the concept of the ‘other’ more understandable as it has been investigated from hindsight of the colonial era. She does this in her article “The Angel of Progress: Pitfalls of the Term ‘Post-Colonialism’” (1992) by discussing these concepts in relation to a particular art exhibit. This particular art exhibit was apparently designed with the specific purpose of graphically illustrating this point, particularly as it relates to the progression of culture through three key stages.
Beginning with a singular culture without much contact with others, the exhibit progresses to a colonial culture in which the ‘other’ emerged as a frightening entity that must be constrained and finally to the post-colonial idea of a hybrid culture in which all cultures are attempted to be embraced. McClintock argues that this progression was necessary as increasing understanding of what it means to be other continuously revealed that there is no such thing as a mono-culture; even within the single culture, there were always differing viewpoints, different nuances to belief systems and different means of accomplishing the same sorts of goals.
With these understandings in mind, then, it is possible to turn attention from the definition of ‘other’ as it exists in the philosophers’ context, to the treatment of the ‘other’ as it was understood in the minds of the Victorians themselves. Investigating concepts of the other in race, nationality or physical appearance begins to define national belonging which is given greater definition as the other is explored in gender in novels such as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Other in Race / Nationality / Physical Appearance
Within the context of English society during the Victorian era, a great deal of national identity was formed not only from the religious affiliations one had, but, perhaps to an even greater degree, upon the type of figure one presented. If one was English, white and good-looking, one could open all kinds of doors, as was demonstrated in several of the works under discussion. One’s sense of belonging and identity were therefore defined by how much they appeared to fit within this ideal.
However, if a character did not fit the accepted definitions regarding physical beauty, accepted race (white) or accepted nationality, that character was invariably among the ‘bad guys’ of the story. English nationality was, of course, the highest ideal, although occasionally other races could be considered. The French were ranked near the bottom rung of the social ladder with the other ‘barbarian’ groups that were also associated with differing races. In this way, English ideals were supported as the best and brightest ideal in the world while all ‘others’ took on lesser importance in keeping with a more or less unified vision of understanding, respect or fear.
Dracula
An example of an individual who presents the correct race in being white but does not fit within the accepted definition of the self in Victorian times because of both his physical appearance and nationality is Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This character is described in physical terms upon Harker’s first meeting with him through a focus upon those elements of his appearance that are outside of the accepted ‘norm’.
Count Dracula has ruddy red lips that give him an “unexpected air of vitality” (Ch. 2), but the breath that emerges from between those lips is noxious enough to make Harker’s stomach react with a queasy feeling. Immediately, then, the lips are pointed to as an unusual feature in this character and thus something with which to be concerned. Harker then comments upon Dracula’s extremely pale complexion, the unusually pointy teeth that protrude over his bottom lip and the icy cold touch of his hands, which have, incidentally, been manicured to provide him with very pointy fingernails.
These are all features that differ from what is expected and are given a sinister air just because of their difference rather than because of any action that is taken with them – at least not yet. “Dracula is physically ‘other’: the dark, unconscious, the sexuality that Victorian England denied…. He is also culturally ‘other’: a revenant from the ages of superstition… But more significantly he is socially ‘other’: the embodiment of all the social forces that lurked just beneath the frontiers of Victorian middle-class consciousness, everything that was socially ‘other’ to the Victorian bourgeoisie. He represents all dark, foreign (i.e. non-English) races; all ‘dark’, foreign (i.e. non-bourgeois) classes; and (paradoxically) the ‘dark’, exotic aristocracy, which, though moribund, might suddenly revive” (Hatlan, 1980).
As a consequence of his somewhat shocking physical appearance and different cultural background, Dracula is only just able to mix with the fringes of English society, seen in this novel to interact almost exclusively with the residents of a home for the mentally imbalanced.
In addition, Dracula can be seen to be limited by his nationality. To illustrate a point in fact if not in writing, Stoker created several means of illustrating how nationality prevented ‘others’ from integrating into proper English society. For example, Dracula is permitted to sleep only on Transylvanian soil and he is weakened by the sunlight, which presumably is not as bright or as prevalent in his homeland as it is in England.
Again, this illustrates the importance of a lack of knowledge in presenting the case of the ‘other’. Although both England and Transylvania (a region within Romania) have temperate climates, Transylvania actually averages higher temperatures in the summer than England and generally less rainfall, therefore more sunny weather (“Romania”, 2008). However, in order to present the ‘other’ represented by Dracula as menacing or evil, Stoker must illustrate him as coming from a dark and brooding landscape, cloud-covered and sinister.
Heart of Darkness
The concept of the ‘other’ took on a new direction with the near-Victorian novels such as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Rather than concentrating on the individual who does not belong based upon his appearance or physical presence, the idea of nationality has moved underground in the individual, such as through the depiction of Kurtz. Throughout the novel, it has been shown that no one has a clear concept of the man named Kurtz, who instead seems comprised of a series of impressions imposed upon him by others.
He is considered dangerous and fearful by the Manager, a brilliant poet by the Russian Trader, was early thought of as a painter by Marlow, a wonderful musician by a cousin who meets with Marlow following his return and an excellent elocutionist and politician by the journalist. The scene at his cottage in the jungle depicts a man of almost inhuman brutality and the sight of his African mistress instills a deep sense of dread every time she is seen standing upon the shore. “Conrad shows us Kurtz’s ultimate degradation shortly before his last scene so that we may better understand the significance of the moral light that reilluminates him at a moment when he had nothing at all to gain and might more probably be supposed to die with lips sealed in contempt” (Anderson, 1988).
The conversation Marlow has with the Intended reveals her belief in Kurtz as a tremendous humanitarian with a genius mind while the Company official seems to believe he has every right to have expected more out of the man than what he’s been given, both in terms of material profit and scientific undertaking. Marlow’s own experiences of him portrays him as an empty shell of a man who nevertheless deserves tremendous respect and honor because of his ability, at the end, to face his own reality in the final words he utters, “The horror! The horror!” These conflicting impressions regarding Marlow and his worth supports the dominant culture in that while an ideal man such as Kurtz might become entirely corrupted through such close association with ‘primitives’ as Kurtz had been, his ‘civilized’ identity and morality won out in the end because of his superior fiber.
Finally, in Marlow’s concern for justice done in his conversations with Kurtz’s girlfriend, despite the deepest darkness of the truth, indicates yet another aspect of the man who was Kurtz as a man who valued truth above all things, finally revealing the motive for all of his undertakings and the final self-pronouncement of his own eternity.
Other in Gender / Sexuality
Issues of gender and sexuality were also tremendous stumbling blocks over which numerous characters, and real Victorians, had to struggle in order to overcome the label of the dreaded ‘other’ and thus identify with the national identity. Within the patriarchal society of the Christian nations, the female was always relegated to the status of the ‘other’, frequently misunderstood, almost always under tremendous social constraints and easily removed from a favorable position with only the slightest provocation.
At the same time, men were expected to operate according to specific rules of behavior, namely that they were to be heterosexual, virile, yet also constrained and sensible of a woman’s good name. It was all right to have intercourse with women to whom one was not married, but that woman must be of a much inferior social status and must not be allowed to cross these boundaries. It was not all right to have too great affection for other men, and it was absolutely sinful to desire sexual relations with them or even to hint such a possibility existed.
Dracula
Beyond his appearance, his nationality and the inferior social position such attributes placed upon Dracula, his otherness is expressed through his active pursuit of the ladies that share his social space and the increased level of sexuality he introduces into that society. The accusations levied against Dracula by the others include the murdering of Lucy Westenra, by turning her into a vampire, and the attempted seduction of Mina.
However, Lucy’s dual nature could easily be explained by her presence in the mental institution, perhaps as a result of having a previous difficulty in conforming to the social roles she was expected to play, and the awakening of her sexuality with the introduction of a man willing to explore it with her (Hatlan, 1980). Her death could also be attributed not necessarily to the vampire Dracula but to the dangerous nature of the blood transfusions she was receiving. Mina herself admits to being a willing and active party to her seduction within her diary, indicating an awakening sense of sexuality in the breast of that young lady as well (Stoker, 2007).
However, these awakening ideas are not part of the constrained and ‘civilized’ social ideals of the upper class and are therefore condemned as ‘other’ by blaming them upon an unnatural creation (Dracula) and illness.
Dracula himself is shown to prefer seduction, allowing an individual to make their own free choice, over force in nearly everything he does, emphasizing his sexuality throughout. He is truthful in his statements of his desires rather than attempting to frame his actions in terms of working for a common good and he openly flaunts customs in response to his desires rather than attempting to curb them through the outside social forces of religion and custom, both of which tend to bring this sexuality out into the open rather than hidden behind the closed doors and locked shutters of proper English society (Hatlan, 1980).
Heart of Darkness
Conrad himself establishes the difference between men and women when discussing the aunt that landed him his job in Africa. He says women “live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up, it would go to pieces before the first sunset” (Conrad, 1995: 28). As a result of this conception, “Woman as symbol is of central importance, the embodiment of the culture’s highest values.
Yet women as persons are severely restricted in their sphere of activity … The enterprises of civilization are carried on in woman’s name but not under her direction” (Geary, 2002: 501). This is very much like the ‘idea’ of colonialism without the civilizing influences of those who hold to these ideals and the concept is finally epitomized in the figure of the Intended as repository of the light and the ideal. “However, it becomes increasingly clear upon examination of the episode that the Intended belongs to the darkness … She is very much a part of the rich, dead surroundings … an image which calls to mind the dark and sinister effect of the light in Kurtz’s painting” (Geary, 2002: 504-505).
She is sequestered in her conceptions about the world and her ideals without being required to fully examine them just as the Englishmen are sequestered within their ideals about colonialism without actually being forced to understand what is truly happening. Rather than face up to the truth of the issue, Marlow finds himself lying to her to protect her innocence just as other explorers have lied to his countrymen regarding what is happening in Africa. He abandons this tact, though, in telling his shipmates on this voyage the truth of things as well as he can and realizes the impossibility of it all.
Conclusion
Through a lengthy process of definition by comparison between the home nation and the foreigner or the ‘real’ society of men and the ‘psuedo-society’ of women with the concept of the other, national identity was formed and reinforced through the works of literature produced during this era. Women were seen as belonging to a mysterious inner realm to which the dynamics of the outer world would never be comprehensible. The greater the European masculine qualities a man had, the more successful he could anticipate being within his social group while more effeminate men would necessarily draw some form of ridicule and scorn.
At the same time, people were accepted into the national group to the degree that their appearance and birthplace coincided with national definitions and behaviors. As has been illustrated through the concept of the other, it was through these types of comparisons and contrasts that the concept of nationality was first developed.
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