Community, Scapegoating, and Narrative Structure in Joseph Conrad’s Under Western Eyes

Abstract

This paper proposes a reading of Joseph Conrad’s Under Western Eyes (1911) along the lines of two key concepts—community and scapegoat. The novel is structured around a pattern of repetition and variation according to which its protagonist, Razumov, temporarily enters a series of communities, only to be expelled from them through scapegoating practices. Under Western Eyes uses a ‘found manuscript’ device to have an English Professor of languages in Geneva tell the story of the student Razumov and his involvement with a revolutionist fellow student, Haldin, who seeks refuge in his room after committing a terrorist attack against a member of the Russian government. Razumov betrays Haldin to the authorities, is recruited by them to work as a spy, and charged to infiltrate the revolutionist circles exiled in Geneva, pretending to be Haldin’s acolyte. Combining sections from Razumov’s diary, extracted, translated, in part retold, and elaborated by the Professor from an inevitably Western perspective, the novel reveals in a belated way Razumov’s role as a spy for the government, and hence his precarious status as part of the exile community in Geneva. Razumov’s trajectory in the novel moves along a series of problematic ascriptions to a variety of communities: friendship with his fellow students, clandestine brotherhood with Haldin, good Russian citizen, confidant of the government, mourner with the Haldin family, member of the revolutionist cell in Geneva, double agent for the secret services, lover of Natalia Haldin. Razumov’s ascription to these communities is problematic