“Race”, Language and Xenophobia in Joseph Conrad’s “Amy Foster”

Abstract

Chinua Achebe’s animus against the creator of Heart of Darkness did not simply end with the charge of racism but extended to anti-Semitism and xenophobia as well. The term “xenophobia”, which is imbricated in the dialectics of race and language, features strongly in the current politics of diaspora and identity. Conventional scholarship on Conrad’s short fiction “Amy Foster” has followed two predominant strands, namely, the extreme loneliness of Yanko Goorall, the central protagonist of this seemingly mistitled story, and his inability to communicate in a foreign land. This article, from the hermeneutic space afforded by postcoloniality, postulates the construct of “race”, as understood in the nineteenth century, as a major catalyst in the breakdown in the marriage of Yanko and Amy. It holds to the view that the tragedy of the former is not so much the outcome of a lack of communication between a castaway and his local English wife, but is predetermined in the face of an ethnocentric, if not rampantly “racist” insular, parochial community. The article concludes that the story is Conrad’s study of the racist recesses of the human psyche which manifest in discrimination against the other. Displaced geographically, culturally, and linguistically, Yanko (like Conrad himself) is a metonymic inscription of alterity, whose attempts to reclaim his linguistic and cultural identity end in tragedy.

 Opsomming

 Chinua Achebe se wrewel teenoor die skepper van Heart of Darkness het nie bloot geëindig met die aantyging van rassisme nie, maar het ook anti Semitisme en vreemdelingehaat ingesluit. Die term “vreemdelingehaat” (of “xenofobie”), wat in die dialektiek van ras en taal verweef is, kom sterk na vore in die huidige politiek van diaspora en identiteit. Konvensionele vakkundigheid oor Conrad se kort fiksie getiteld “Amy Foster” het hoofsaaklik twee strome gevolg, naamlik die geweldige eensaamheid van Yanko Goorall, die sentrale protagonis van hierdie oenskynlik verkeerd benoemde storie, en sy onvermoe om in 'n vreemde land te kommunikeer. Hierdie artikel veronderstel, vanuit die hermeneutiese ruimte wat deur postkolonialisme geskep is, die idee van “ras”, soos verstaan in die negentiende eeu, as 'n belangrike katalisator in die mislukking van Yanko en Amy se huwelik. Dit beaam die sienswyse dat die tragedie van die eersgenoemde nie soseer die uitkoms van 'n gebrek aan kommunikasie tussen 'n verworpene en sy plaaslike Engelse vrou is nie, maar vooraf bepaal word in 'n etnosentriese, selfs verregaande “rassisties geisoleerde”, parogiale gemeenskap. Die slotsom van die artikel is dat die storie Conrad se studie van die rassistiese terugwykings van die menslike psige is wat in diskriminasie teenoor die ander manifesteer. Yanko (soos Conrad self) is geografies, kultureel en linguisties ontwortel – 'n metonimiese inskripsie van andersheid, wie se pogings om sy linguistiese en kulturele identiteit terug te eis, in tragedie eindig.