Exploring Human Nature In Strangeness

This thesis employs one of the Russian formalists Victor Shklovsky's theory of"defamiliarization"as the theoretical frame to study the defamiliarization features of Joseph Conrad's novel—Heart of Darkness on the levels of language, narration and characterization. Conrad, living in the transitional period between the 19th and 20th century, is one of the founders of literary Modernism and enjoys high prestige in world literature. By means of profound cultural grounding, creative writing skills and absorbing contents, he has created a series of impressive novels which explore and reveal the deep meanings of colonization, morality and human nature and so on. In those works, Conrad is always subverting the literary conventions familiar to both the writers and readers of the Victorian times and his originality primarily lies in his employment of diverse techniques which happen to coincide with those of defamiliarization. Thus, the reader will develop a sense of newness and strangeness to what he is familiar with.Defamiliarization, as a term, was first developed by Viktor Shklovsky in the mid-20th century. It gradually becomes an artistic technique which tends to make the reader see some familiar things in an unfamiliar way and perceive it more deeply. Heart of Darkness, as Conrad's most famous jungle novel, is based on his journey to Congo in 1890. This novel not only describes a sailing into the inner land of Africa but also reveals a process of exploring the self and the dark world of human nature. Heart of Darkness is filled with defamiliarized images and expressions which prolong the time the reader needs to get close to the truth and thus make a deeper impression on the reader's mind.This thesis studies the features of defamiliarization in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. On the level of language, linguistic deformation, defamiliarized colors, fantastic conceits and ironic utterances are studied; on the level of narration, frame narrative structure, shift of narrative perspective and impressionism in plot are analyzed; on the level of characterization, the delayed decoding in the portrayal of Kurtz is discussed and this part also analyzes two mysterious women images, that is, the black woman full of energy and passion and the white woman with a sinister air. These writing skills deliver strong effects of defamiliarization and accordingly reinforce the artistic value of the work and deepen the theme.Through analyzing the features of defamiliarization in Heart of Darkness, the thesis reveals the message Conrad conveys to the reader: seeking the inner land of Africa, trying to find the mysterious Kurtz in darkness, and exploring human nature in strangeness. By prolonging the time the reader needs to get close to the truth and thus making a deeper impression on the reader's mind, Conrad explores and reveals the complicatedness and changefulness of human nature, especially the feature of rapid deterioration without the restraints of morality.