Logo Oapen
  • Search
  • Join
    • Deposit
    • For Librarians
    • For Publishers
    • For Researchers
    • Funders
    • Resources
    • OAPEN
    • For Librarians
    • For Publishers
    • For Researchers
    • Funders
    • Resources
    • OAPEN
    View Item 
    •   OAPEN Home
    • View Item
    •   OAPEN Home
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    The Challenge of Bewilderment

    Understanding and Representation in James, Conrad, and Ford

    Thumbnail
    Download PDF Viewer
    Download
    Author(s)
    Armstrong, Paul B.
    Language
    English
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    The Challenge of Bewilderment treats the epistemology of representation in major works by Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Ford Madox Ford, attempting to explain how the novel turned away from its traditional concern with realistic representation and toward self-consciousness about the relation between knowing and narration. Paul B. Armstrong here addresses the pivotal thematic experience of "bewilderment," an experience that challenges the reader’s very sense of reality and that shows it to have no more certainty or stability than an interpretative construct. Through readings of The Sacred Fount and The Ambassadors by James, Lord Jim and Nostromo by Conrad, and The Good Soldier and Parade’s End by Ford, Armstrong examines how each writer dramatizes his understanding of the act of knowing. Armstrong demonstrates how the novelists’ attitudes toward the process of knowing inform experiments with representation, through which they thematize the relation between the understanding of a fictional world and everyday habits of perception. Finally, he considers how these experiments with the strategies of narration produce a heightened awareness of the process of interpretation. ; The Challenge of Bewilderment treats the epistemology of representation in major works by Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Ford Madox Ford, attempting to explain how the novel turned away from its traditional concern with realistic representation and toward self-consciousness about the relation between knowing and narration. Paul B. Armstrong here addresses the pivotal thematic experience of "bewilderment," an experience that challenges the reader’s very sense of reality and that shows it to have no more certainty or stability than an interpretative construct. Through readings of The Sacred Fount and The Ambassadors by James, Lord Jim and Nostromo by Conrad, and The Good Soldier and Parade’s End by Ford, Armstrong examines how each writer dramatizes his understanding of the act of knowing. Armstrong demonstrates how the novelists’ attitudes toward the process of knowing inform experiments with representation, through which they thematize the relation between the understanding of a fictional world and everyday habits of perception. Finally, he considers how these experiments with the strategies of narration produce a heightened awareness of the process of interpretation.
    URI
    https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/62052
    Keywords
    Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000; Literature: history and criticism
    DOI
    10.7298/dn3b-0797
    ISBN
    9781501722721, 9780801419492, 9781501722738, 9781501722714, 9781501722721, 9781501722738
    Publisher
    Cornell University Press
    Publisher website
    https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/
    Publication date and place
    Ithaca, 1987
    Grantor
    • National Endowment for the Humanities - [...] - Open Book Program
    Imprint
    Cornell University Press
    Classification
    Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers
    Pages
    294
    Rights
    https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
    • Imported or submitted locally

    Browse

    All of OAPENSubjectsPublishersLanguagesCollections

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Export

    Repository metadata
    Logo Oapen
    • For Librarians
    • For Publishers
    • For Researchers
    • Funders
    • Resources
    • OAPEN

    Newsletter

    • Subscribe to our newsletter
    • view our news archive

    Follow us on

    License

    • If not noted otherwise all contents are available under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

    Credits

    • logo EU
    • This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 683680, 810640, 871069 and 964352.

    OAPEN is based in the Netherlands, with its registered office in the National Library in The Hague.

    Director: Niels Stern

    Address:
    OAPEN Foundation
    Prins Willem-Alexanderhof 5
    2595 BE The Hague
    Postal address:
    OAPEN Foundation
    P.O. Box 90407
    2509 LK The Hague

    Websites:
    OAPEN Home: www.oapen.org
    OAPEN Library: library.oapen.org
    DOAB: www.doabooks.org

     

     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Differen formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    A logged-in user can export up to 15000 items. If you're not logged in, you can export no more than 500 items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.