A Denegative and Intertextual Reassessment of “The Tale”

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that, as in the case of other short fictions of Joseph Conrad (“Freya of the Seven Isles,” A Smile of Fortune,” and “The Planter of Malata”), also in the case of “The Tale” (1917)—the author’s most enigmatic piece—an intertextual and a denegative approach generates new perspectives. “The Tale”s intertextuality is considered here in the context of pre- and post-Conrad American writing, ranging from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, through William Faulkner’s, to Toni Morrison’s. A denegative (asserting presence by absence, and vice versa) reconsideration of “The Tale”’s diagetic concentric narration demonstrates that it owes its epistemological haze precisely to the device of denegation, which likewise creates a strict convergence between the story’s governing themes of love and war, thereby revealing the undercurrent of idealism, ego, and suspiciousness in the commanding officer’s character, which seems to be the main factor in both his murderous operational decision and the lovers’ estrangement.