Work, inheritance, and deserts in Joseph Conrad's fiction / Evelyn Tsz Yan Chan.
2022
PR6005.O4
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Title
Work, inheritance, and deserts in Joseph Conrad's fiction / Evelyn Tsz Yan Chan.
ISBN
9789811925849 (electronic bk.)
9811925844 (electronic bk.)
9789811925832
9811925844 (electronic bk.)
9789811925832
Published
Singapore : Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
Language
English
Description
1 online resource (xii, 155 pages) : illustrations
Item Number
10.1007/978-981-19-2584-9 doi
Call Number
PR6005.O4
Dewey Decimal Classification
823/.912
Summary
This book focuses on the complex relationships between inheritance, work, and desert in literature. It shows how, from its manifestation in the trope of material inheritance and legacy in Victorian fiction, "inheritance" gradually took on additional, more modern meanings in Joseph Conrad's fiction on work and self-making. In effect, the emphasis on inheritance as referring to social rank and wealth acquired through birth shifted to a focus on talent, ability, and merit, often expressed through work. The book explores how Conrad's fiction engaged with these changing modes of inheritance and work, and the resulting claims of desert they led to. Uniquely, it argues that Conrad's fiction critiques claims of desert arising from both work and inheritance, while also vividly portraying the emotional costs and existential angst that these beliefs in desert entailed. The argument speaks to and illuminates today's debates on moral desert arising from work and inheritance, in particular from meritocratic ideals. Its new approach to Conrad's works will appeal to students and scholars of Conrad and literary modernism, as well as a wider audience interested in philosophical and social debates on desert deriving from inheritance and work.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description
Online resource; title from PDF title page (SpringerLink, viewed August 23, 2022).
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Table of Contents
Introduction
"[T]he rightful due of a successful man" : Claiming Desert in Almayer's Folly and An Outcast of the Islands
"A Manifestation of a Deep, Inborn Inherited Instinct": Instabilities of Self-Making in Lord Jim
Nostromo's Great Expectations
"[E]ntitled to Undisputed Success": Professional Being vs. Doing in The Secret Agent
The Moral Work of Affirming Inheritances in Under Western Eyes and Victory.
"[T]he rightful due of a successful man" : Claiming Desert in Almayer's Folly and An Outcast of the Islands
"A Manifestation of a Deep, Inborn Inherited Instinct": Instabilities of Self-Making in Lord Jim
Nostromo's Great Expectations
"[E]ntitled to Undisputed Success": Professional Being vs. Doing in The Secret Agent
The Moral Work of Affirming Inheritances in Under Western Eyes and Victory.