The Tragical Significance Of Joseph Conrad's Novels

The western classical tragical conception showed the restrictions of rationalism to tragical spirit. However, at the end of the 19th century , the western tragical conception started to change and correct the traditional tragical conception. The western modern tragedy took the human self-doubt and self-negation as kernel and the alienation as its theme. As one of the pioneers of western modernistic literature, British writer Joseph Conrad revealed some first omens of the western modern tragedy in his novels.By reading and analysing Conrad's some important novels, this thesis deeply explored the tragical significance in them. The thesis mainly contained four parts. The first part studied the formative reasons of the tragical significance in Conrad's novels. The second part inquiried Conrad's suspicions and negations to the western civilization. He revealed and animadverted the ruthlessness, brutality and darkness of the imperialism and the colonialism which were the necessary producations of the capitalistic civilization. And Conrad also probed into the dark sides of the human nature. The third part focused on the self s loneliness and the world's absurdity, which were two important tragical themes of the western modernistic literature in the 20th century. The last part mainly discussed the complex narrative structures and the symbolic skills in Conrad's novels. The paper argued that they were very important in building the tragical atmosphere and strengthenning the tragical significance in Conrad's novels. Through deep discussion on the tragical significance of Conrad's novels, both Conrad's works and the development of western modern tragical literature could be easily comprehended.