Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Conrad, Nostromo
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Week 9 — Part 3, Chapters 10-13 & Book as a Whole
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We don't really find out what the book is about until the last four chapters. Everything previous sets the stage for the great conflict: the fearless, resourceful, incorruptible Nostromo is tempted into an excusable theft that will set him up for life, and no-one will ever know. Then his life unravels and he is destroyed. Emilia Gould does not want the accursed treasure, which has ruined so honorable a man. I guess the remainder of it remains buried forever on Great Isabel.
Discussion starters:For this week’s reading:
1) Nostromo is compared several times in these chapters to a drowning man. What might be the symbolism/meaning behind that image?
2) Why does Mrs Gould tell the doctor that the dying Nostromo told her nothing?
For the book as a whole:
As potential starting points, I’ve pulled just a few of the excellent questions everyone has been raising throughout the discussion. Some have been edited a bit to fit as standalone questions. Please feel free to add your own.
1) Where’s the sense of hope that inspired the revolution? Can there be a hero without an outsized goal? Is there a hero? (Suzann)
2) Does Mrs Gould function as the moral center of the book? (Tamara)
3) How do the initial descriptions of the land color the decisions and actions to come, mesh with and change Costaguana from that original description? Does Costaguana evolve into something great or does it resist that and remain the same or change into something else? (David)
4) What is Conrad ultimately saying about the issues of colonialism and capitalism in Costaguana/the Occidental Republic? (Aiden)
Roger wrote: "We don't really find out what the book is about until the last four chapters. Everything previous sets the stage for the great conflict: the fearless, resourceful, incorruptible Nostromo is tempted into an excusable theft that will set him up for life, and no-one will ever know. Then his life unravels and he is destroyed. Emilia Gould does not want the accursed treasure, which has ruined so honorable a man. I guess the remainder of it remains buried forever on Great Isabel.”I agree that’s a major part of Emilia Gould’s motive for refusing his offer of the treasure’s location. But I’m wondering why you say the theft is “excusable”? Nostromo himself seems to have some guilt about his action.
Susan wrote: "Roger wrote: "We don't really find out what the book is about until the last four chapters. Everything previous sets the stage for the great conflict: the fearless, resourceful, incorruptible Nostr...""Excusable" because Nostromo had been growing irritated at being taken for granted and always designated for any new dangerous mission.
Susan wrote: "Discussion starters:For this week’s reading:
1) Nostromo is compared several times in these chapters to a drowning man. What might be the symbolism/meaning behind that image?
" I thought at first his survival and rising above the sinking boat was sort of like a rebirth or baptism along with his eureka moment, with a new outlook on the people around him. However with his new rebirth, he seems to then drown under his own guilt and greed which becomes worse as his engagement to Linda as well as his attraction to Giselle weighs down on him along with the creeping feeling of being haunted by the curse of the treasure.
It's funny how the more he became more independent and free with his outward enterprise, he seemed to be more haunted by other things such as his hidden treasure and his hidden love
Susan wrote: "1) Nostromo is compared several times in these chapters to a drowning man. What might be the symbolism/meaning behind that image?2) Why does Mrs Gould tell the doctor that the dying Nostromo told her nothing?"
It's made clear by the end of the novel that the silver of the San Tome mine is cursed (born of greed?). Not necessarily in the literal sense, but it destroys everyone who possesses it because it consumes their thoughts and life.
First, Charles Gould's father had the silver and it got him executed by the previous regime who wanted it for themselves. Charles Gould seems prosperous by the end, but is he actually happy? He's put in the same position as his father had been, being threatened with an imminent death during revolution. He was fortunate that he survived, but the way he did it (my interpretation) is by passing the silver and, thus, the curse onto Nostromo. Even after surviving, we hear that he spends almost all his time at the mine. He is being consumed by his "material interests."
Finally, Nostromo sees that he isn't appreciated as a human being, but only as a tool. He rebels against this by keeping the silver for himself. (He tells Emilia that he couldn't return it with Decoud's 4 ingots missing, but I find that argument disingenuous, at best.)
Mrs. Gould finally breaks the curse by recognizing, as Nostromo recognized too late, that all that wealth is like a stone around the neck, dragging you down to the bottom of the sea. Hence, the symbolism of Nostromo as a drowning man. And it does, in fact, take him down in the end. When Emelia refuses it, and no one else knows where it is hidden, the curse is broken and the silver had essentially gone back to the land from which it was pulled.
I'm going to save my overall interpretations for another post, but I did love Conrad's bit of irony in giving Nostromo's full name at the end: Gian' Battista Fidanza. The first part seems to be the John the Baptist to Decoud's Christ figure, what with Decoud's planning and assistance being essential to defeating Montero and birthing a new nation. Conrad only started calling Nostromo Captain Fidanza after he steals the silver. "Fidanza" is Italian for truth/fidelity. Captain Fidelity would have been an accurate title for most of the novel, but Conrad only uses it when its use becomes ironic. Love it.
I don't want to ruin the experience of understanding the meaning of the fact that it's Giorgio Viola who kills Nostromo, but for anyone who wants a clue: (view spoiler)Conrad was such a clever writer.
Roger wrote: "Excusable" because Nostromo had been growing irritated at being taken for granted and always designated for any new dangerous mission...."Thanks for clarifying. One of the many ironies in these four chapters is that Nostromo who justly feels used as a means to an end instead of being treated as a fellow human being ends up using the Viola family as a means to protect his access to the silver.
Borum wrote: ".. However with his new rebirth, he seems to then drown under his own guilt and greed which becomes worse as his engagement to Linda as well as his attraction to Giselle weighs down on him along with the creeping feeling of being haunted by the curse of the treasure."That’s the sense I had too — that Nostromo, who is such a strong swimmer and navigator of life in general, is metaphorically drowned by the burden of the silver. I wondered if there is also a kind of doubling with Decoud. Conrad writes that Decoud died of solitude; and in a way, Nostromo inhabits a solitude of his own because of his secret.
Aiden wrote: "Mrs. Gould finally breaks the curse by recognizing, as Nostromo recognized too late, that all that wealth is like a stone around the neck, dragging you down to the bottom of the sea. Hence, the symbolism of Nostromo as a drowning man. And it does, in fact, take him down in the end. When Emelia refuses it, and no one else knows where it is hidden, the curse is broken and the silver had essentially gone back to the land from which it was pulled..."I like the idea that the silver returns to the land in the end, breaking the curse. There are so many ironies in this part of the story. It was Decoud who saw no reason to hold up the silver shipment despite the pending arrival of the pro-Montero forces—a big miscalculation, and who knows what twists events would have taken if the shipment had been held at the mine? Sotillo might not have been so eager to come to Sulaco in the first place.
Aiden wrote: "Fidanza" is Italian for truth/fidelity. Captain Fidelity would have been an accurate title for most of the novel, but Conrad only uses it when its use becomes ironic. Love it...."That’s a great example of Conrad’s use of irony.
Background: Pro-Montero forces occupy both the town of Sulaco (Pedro Montero and his allies) and the harbor (Colonel Sotillo and his troops). Nostromo has made it to shore, leaving Martin Decoud and the buried silver on Great Isabel. Feeling used and betrayed, Nostromo has a psychological crisis as he considers what’s happened. When he meets Doctor Monygham, he learns everyone else believes the lighter sank with the silver and that both he and Decoud are dead. The doctor then finds Señor Hirsh’s body in the Customs House; he was tortured and shot by Colonel Sotillo, but the doctor still plans to spin a story to Sotillo about the silver to delay him. He decides Nostromo is the one to go get General Barrios in Cayta to return and free the town/province. Nostromo eventually agrees to wait in the inn, but he does not confide the truth in either the doctor, who he distrusts, or in Giorgio Viola who is grieving for his wife.
In the next chapter, it is as if someone hit the fast forward button. The revolution is over, and Captain Mitchell is showing a visitor Sulaco (now the capital of the Occidental Republic) and telling about its history. We learn that Barrios’ troops defeated Pedro Montero using the new rifles brought by Decoud. Don Pepe led the miners into town in time to save Señor Gould from being shot by Montero’s troops and saved Father Roman from having to dynamite the San Tome mine. In the cathedral is a memorial bust of Don Jose Avellaños and a marble medallion to mark the memory of Martin Decoud. Antonia is living in Sulaco with her uncle, now a Bishop. Dr Monygham “saved us all from the deadly incubus of Sotillo, where a more particular man might have failed—“ because buying the doctor’s story, Sotillo put off joining forces with Montero to obsessively drag the harbor for the missing silver. Nostromo also saved them by successfully carrying letters to Barrios, 180 miles by the train and then 400 miles in 6 days by horseback. Just as Sotillo was angrily ready to hang the doctor, Barrios and his troops arrived by sea in the nick of time. As Nostromo sees it, “It was his daring, his courage, his act that had set these ships in motion upon the sea, hurrying on to save the lives and fortunes of the Blancos, the taskmasters of the people; to save the San Tome mine; to save the [Viola] children.”
Captain Mitchell remarks that Nostromo refused to ask anything in payment from Don Carlos Gould, but the captain and Mrs Gould arranged to have him bought a coasting schooner (although Nostromo paid the price back over a few years). Nostromo is now known as Captain Fidanza, but I’ll keep calling him Nostromo. The San Tome mine is doing well and has greatly expanded in size and scope. In the new republic, there are two political parties: the Conservative or Parliamentary party and the Democratic Party, made up mostly of “those socialistic Italians with their secret societies” and “the natives”.
The story returns to Nostromo’s point of view. When he returned with Barrios sixteen days after the collision with Sotillo’s troopship, he spots the lighter’s boat floating in the gulf. Nostromo dives overboard to go to the little boat. He finds a bloodstain in the boat and rows to Great Isabel where there is no sign of Decoud. But when Nostromo uncovers the silver, he discovers four ingots are missing. As Nostromo thinks pondering, Barrios and his troops arrive in Sulaco and liberate the town.
But what happened to Decoud? Left alone on the island, he had a psychological crisis. Sleepless, he worried that their mission had failed, that Nostromo was dead, and that Antonia hadn’t survived. He rowed out into the gulf, killed himself, and went over the side of the boat, weighted down with the four ingots of silver. “But the truth was that he died from solitude, the enemy known but to few on this earth, and whom only the simplest of us are fit to withstand.” Nostromo realizes slowly that Decoud must be dead. He plans: “I must grow rich very slowly.”
Time passes. Captain Mitchell retires and goes back to England. The Goulds take a long trip to Europe and the USA. The doctor who has been living in the Casa Gould during their absence goes to meet them when they return. As Doña Emilia and the doctor talk about the past, Antonia and her uncle, now the first Cardinal-Archbishop of Sulaco, stop by. They are thinking of the people who remain in Costaguana “groaning under oppression, those who have been our countrymen only a few years ago, who are our countrymen now.” The doctor remarks after their departure that they are plotting for an invasion of Costaguana with the refugees from Sta Marta who take refuge in Sulaco after every revolution.
Mr Gould is still “incorrigible in his hard determined service of the material interests in which he had pinned his faith in the triumph of order and justice.” The doctor tells Mrs Gould he sees a different outcome: “There is no peace and rest in the development of material interests….[their law and justice] is founded on expediency, and is inhuman; it is without rectitude, without the continuity and the force that can be found only in a moral principle.”
The doctor talks to Mrs Gould about a problem affecting the Viola family, now living on Great Isabel. One of Giselle Viola’s followers named Ramirez has been banned from the island, but he has been watching and discovered that Nostromo, who is allowed to visit, returns very late at night. What is he doing? He is supposed to leave the island at sunset. Is he after Giselle? One day when the doctor was nearby, Ramirez confronted Linda about it. He also warned the doctor that Nostromo denounced him at one of the secret meetings as ”the worst enemy of all the poor- of the people.” Mrs Gould says she will talk to Nostromo.
Nostromo has been slowly removing the silver from the island and selling it on his trips. When he returned from a long trip away, he discovered a lighthouse was being built on Great Isabel. At first, he was sure his secret would be discovered and his reputation lost. After investigating, he decided he was safe while the lighthouse was under construction, but there would be a problem removing the silver once it was complete and someone was living on the island. He went to Captain Mitchell and asked for the position for Giorgio Viola. Giorgio and his oldest daughter Linda liked the idea. One benefit was to get Giselle the younger daughter away from a suitor they didn’t like — the new Capataz of Cargadores, Ramirez.
Nostromo was also pushed into asking Giorgio Viola for his daughter’s hand so he had a reason to make regular visits to the island. He meant to ask for Giselle’s hand, but Viola assumed he meant Linda, who had always been understood to be his intended and was in love with him. Nostromo was afraid speaking up to correct the misunderstanding would cause a brouhaha and he would lose access to the treasure, so he went along with the mistake. But he couldn’t resist telling Giselle in secret that she was the one he loves. She told him she loved him and wanted them to get away from the island and her family. He explained that wasn’t possible yet because of the treasure, but he wouldn’t tell her where it is.
Linda believes Ramirez’s story about Nostromo and Giselle. She is angry and feels betrayed, but still loves and almost forgives her sister and Nostromo. Soon after the Goulds’ return, Viola is patrolling the island at night and shoots Nostromo, mistaking him for Ramirez. The dying Nostromo is brought to the hospital near the harbor, and the doctor comes to fetch Mrs Gould because Nostromo wants to see her. The doctor tells Mrs Gould he senses a mystery, maybe about the missing silver. Mrs Gould sees Nostromo who tells her he is a thief and he knows where the silver is. She asks about what happened to Decoud, but he doesn’t know. He offers to tell her where the treasure is, but she declines. When the doctor asks her what Nostromo said, she says “He told me nothing”. She comforts Giselle and has her first moment of cynical bitterness. The doctor heads back to the island. Linda talks to her father, but Viola doesn’t quite realize what he has done. He dies that night reading his Bible while Linda grieves the loss of Nostromo.