98
PARTISAN REVIEW
T he connecti on between hunger and the sexual drive
IS
very
expli cit in the story. As the narrator says of Falk :
He wan led LO live. He had always wanted lO live. So we all do-bul
in u s the inslincl serves a complex conceplion, and in him lhis
inslinCl exisled alone. T here is in such simple develo pment a
g igantic force, and like the palhos of a child 's naive and uncontrolled
d('~ irt'
. ... He was a child. He was as frank as a child , too. He was
h ungry for the girl, lerribl y hungry, as h e had been lerribl y hungry
for food. Don 'l be shocked if 1 declare lhal in my belief il was lhe
same need , the same pain, the same LOTlure.
Wi th thi s empha ti c focus on the "will to li ve" Conrad seems to be
writing with Sch openhauer in mind , as he did most no tabl y in
Vic tory
in whi ch Axel Heys t tri es to li ve out the Schopenhau eri an idea l of
"complete denial of the will " - and fail s. Falk is the direct oppos ite of
Axel. He is the very incarna tion of the "will to live" as described by
Schopenhauer-"indestructibl e," "a blind incessant impulse" and so
on-and Falk is a survivor. Schopenhauer sta tes tha t "will is the thing–
in-itse lf," a phrase used in connecti on with Falk, anci ha rdl y accident–
all y.
In
additi on Schopenhauer stresses tha t the sexual dri ve and its
sa tisfaction is " the focus of the will , its concentra ti on and highest
exp ress ion " and "nex t to th e love of life" it is " the stronges t and mos t
powerful o f motives." All of whi ch is born out by Falk 's beh avior.
(It
is
worth no ting tha t although Schopenhauer rejected sui cide as a denial
of the will to li ve, he did all ow one species of suicide as being a genuine
demonstra ti on of the vanqui shing of the will to live- vo luntary
starva tion . This is the one act whi ch Falk abso lutely refm es to
contempl ate.) And in addition to these basic bi o logica l hungers,
Conrad stresses a rela ted aspect of Falk 's behavior. Not onl y is h e like a
child , an earl y evolution ary p roduct in his appetites (Axel Heys t by
contras t comes very late on ), he is also a primitive economi st. He is, it is
po inted out more than once, a "mo nopo list," expl oiting the fact that
he has th e onl y tug on the river. The narra tor says: " He extracted his
pound and a half of fl esh from each of us merchant- skippers with an
infl exibl e sort of indifference whi ch made him detes ted and even
feared ." Given the narra tor's knowl edge of wha t is to be di sclosed the
metaphori cal linking of Fa lk 's economi c and o ther appetites can
hardl y be accidental.
The setting of the story is a river hos telry by the Thames whi ch the
narrator describes a t some length , concluding. tha t the bad condition of
bo th the res taurant and the chops they were eating
