Conrad’s character typology rests on the activity-value opposition

Evidence

I believe that this system may best be grasped in terms of the major themes of the dilemma just outlined, and in particular of the opposition between activity and value. It is an oppos­ ition not unlike that which underlies Luk.ics’ Theory of the Novel, where it takes the form of a dissociation between Leben, life, sheer contingent, inner-worldly experience, and Wesen, essence, meaning, immanent wholeness. 40 The inner dynamism of such oppositions springs from ” This dialectic of inside and outside-Rabelais’ Silenus box-is principally, as we have suggested in earlier chapters, what is stigmatized in the now canonical attacks on inter­ pretation and on the hermeneutic model (as, e. — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 6160