A Study Of The Awareness Of Mortality In Conrad's Novels

Mortality is a perennially popular subject in literature. Joseph Conrad, one of the most prominent British novelists of the 20th century, has put forward his own unique opinions in this regard on the basis of his personal experience. In the process, the pursuit of this subject is brought into his creations. Besides, Conrad's ideas on the problems of human beings'state of existence and their values are also manifested in his creations. The awareness of mortality is investigated systemically in this paper, while the metaphysical thinking of existence is made accordingly.The present paper falls into four chapters: In the first chapter, individual experience is presented on the basis of the description of both others'demise and his own story on condition that Conrad's biography is displayed. The individual experience is an accumulation of writing materials, which being the cause of his thinking on the problem of immortality, reveals the spiritual crisis of his time. The second chapter deals with the mortality modes by means of text reading. Conrad's presentation of mortality is made in the paper, including the characters'preposterous death, the value orientation and attitude toward to life and death in a dilemma, and the cruelty, robbery and massacre in a civilized society. In the third chapter, the culprits of the preposterous death, the escape, and the appalling killings are presented, namely physical siege and temptation, the setting aside of value system and its variation, the alienation and rupture in relations among people, thus bring about the human beings'dangerous situation. The fourth chapter deals with life on the basis of analysis mortality, probing into Conrad's life awareness resulting from his awareness of mortality. According to Conrad, spiritual life, ethic enrichment, significance can help reconstruct survival creed for human beings who have lose traditions as well as value system, and make a correction of human beings'spiritual life, providing a solution to the various crises, aiming to put human beings back on track of value enrichment and spiritual fullness.