A Lonely Traveller With A Necklace

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) is an English novelist who has a very particular life experience and takes sea as his novels'background and creative material. He believes if a novel wants to be successful, it must move readers'mind. Starting from this point, Conrad uses a number of contrasts of white/black, light/dark, etc. to have an effect on readers'sense organs, to stir up readers'imaginations and to express various symbolic meanings. From the last twenty years of the 20th century, because of his pluralistic cultural background of inter-nation and cross-culture Conrad stirs up the interests of many kinds of literary critical theories, such as new historicism, post-colonialism, etc. Among all Conrad's works, Lord Jim has been regarded as a landmark and one of the world's literary masterpieces. In the novel, Conrad fuses several kinds of symbolic meanings and various elements of the book together. By using the expressive ways and means of symbolism, Conrad shows the reader an image of a lonely traveller with a necklace in the very simple plot. At the same time, he profoundly expresses an inward journey of taking tortures, atoning for crime, suffering a defeat and reviving in spirit.The dissertation consists of five chapters.Chapter One, Introduction, concentrates on the life and works of Joseph Conrad, the importance of Lord Jim, the critical reception of the story and the aims of this dissertation. As one of the most important English novelists, Conrad has written thirty-one novels, some collections of short stories and non-fictional prose works. Among his novels, Lord Jim is a tale that has its own symbolic power. The publication of the book arouses the interest of a lot of critics. It cannot be denied that some attempts have been made to examine the novel within a symbolic framework. However, the criticism only touches briefly on some symbolic elements in the book without probing it in detail. So one of the objectives of the thesis is, by providing a thorough and detailed interpretation of the book, to expound the great artistic power of this novel in the light of symbolism and exhibit Conrad's special creative technique. At the beginning of the...