The Romantic Illusion of Joseph Conrad

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

By completing Lord Jim in 1900, Joseph Conrad opened the new vista of the twentieth century's English novel. The new trend of English novel of that century, E. Drew remarks, is to diagnose "the sense of human isolation and to search for the individual identity." A. Kettle points out its tone becomes "the deep sense of strain and insecurity." To think over the Conradian works under this light, it is natural that many critics have agreed on the human isolation as the main theme of Lord Jim. Accordingly I put the analyzing points on Marlow's quest for the question, "what makes jim the lonely stranger to his neighbour?"
Of course, this analysis must be done through Marlow's eyes, for Marlow is the mouthpiece of Joseph Conrad and the narrator of Lord Jim.
Jim led two major aspects of life, one of which was the galling life after the Patna-affair which caused his honor lost and sailor's certificate cancelled, and the other was satisfactory life at Patusan, where he regained his lost honor, dignity, confidence, and fame. These arc the main structures of Lord Jim.
Before Marlow met Jim at the court-room, jim's life was outlined by the frame narrator, the author. He informs us that Jim came from a parsonage; he was one of five sons, and sent to a training-ship for officers of the mercantile marine. After two years of training course,
he made many voyages. He knew the magic monotony of existence between sky and water; he had to bear the criticism of the men, the exactions of the sea, and the prosaic severity of the daily task that gives bread. Yet he could not go back, because there is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.
Unfortunately Jim's lameness by a falling spar during his early voyage put him in a hospital in an Eastern prot. His recovery was slow, and he was left behind. After he was cured, he decided to take a berth of a local steamer, the Patna, that was as old as the hills, lean like a grey-hound, and was eaten up with rust worse than a condemned water-tank, and was engaged in transporting some 800 Arabs on a religious pilgrimage. At last she cleared the strait and contiuned on her way for the Red Sea under a serene sky:
"How steady she goes" thought Jim with wonder, with something like gratitude for this high peace of sea and sky. At such times his thoughts would be full of valorous deeds; he loved these dreams and the success of his imaginary achievements. They were the best part of life, its hidden reality. They had a gorgeous virility, the charm of vagueness, they passed before him with a heroic tread; they carried his soul away with them and made it drunk with the divine philtre of an unbounded confidence in itself.