The Rhetorical Character Of Death In Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim

As one of the forerunners of modernist British fiction. Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) in most of his works provides a panoramic depiction of the adventurous stories of seamen and their complicated relationship which shaped during the navigation by means of adopting various experimental rhetorical devices including among others symbolism, impressionism, and multiple narrative perspectives. Lord Jim, published in 1900, is perhaps the most brilliant production by Conrad, from which Conrad explores the verite of human nature and the condition of human existence mainly through Marlovw's narration of Jim's upheaval life experience. Jim's loss of certificate as a marine that results from his unfulfilled mission functions as a symbolic death of him for the execution of the trial puts an end to his career. Beyond that, the moral pressure from the mass on the trial signifies a full stop to his honor and human dignity. In the meantime, by shifting time and space constantly in the telling and juxtaposing various points of view, Conrad employs what Aristotle has proposed the efficiency of rhetoric devices to invite judgment among the readers toward Jim's physical and symbolical death.According to Conrad's viewpoints, what comes after death is immortality. However, it hardly signifies any optimistic views toward death. On the contrary, he is a man with skepticism and pessimism, and always holds uncertain and gloomy ideas towards the universe. Yet, death imagery and death narration in Lord Jim therefore is not only a vehicle of his personal tragic world view, but an embodiment of his scrutiny of the living condition of mankind. Thus, inspired by Aristotle's notion of rhetoric and its function in argument, this thesis attempts to demonstrate how Conrad exquisitely reveals Jim's fall through revealing a proper balance of logos, pathos and ethos among the readers, reevaluates his deep concern on the death of human being and human nature as such. Apart from Introduction and Conclusion, the thesis includes two parts. Partâ…¡investigates a major rhetoric device, i.e. symbolism which creates a melancholy and gloomy deathlike aura, through which Marlow fulfills his narration. Partâ…¢examines the author's pondering on the living condition of mankind with the aim of revealing the relationships between the essence of human life, the destiny of artist work, nature of the war and the fate of the nation. This thesis argues that Conrad's vivid exposition of death reflects his mediation on the contradictions between social morality and human nature.