Literary Impressionism In Lord Jim

Literary impressionism refers to the style with which the author presents the object as it is heard, felt and seen in a single passing moment. With this as the starting point, the present thesis intends to illustrate how Conrad, in Lord Jim, employs a number of impressionistic devices on such levels as the plot structure, characterization, narration and representation of the theme. In the light of textual criticism and centering around the two clues - Jim's dilemmas and Marlow's quest, my study intends to prove that literary impressionism is embodied in two major devices in Lord Jim. make you hear and make you see. They are not only Conrad's aesthetic convictions, but also the important artistic devices of Lord Jim. On the one hand, Lord Jim is principally based on Marlow's aural telling, in which he recounts Jim and other characters' speech as the complement of his narration. The interweaving and conflict of the various voices complete the discussion around the central problem how to be as well as represent the theme. On the other hand, the harmony of color, light and mist images, the reproduction of visual effect, and the application of the "eye", all create a vague atmosphere for the novel as well as exhibit the internal conflicts of the characters, through the shifts between what they see and what they think they ought to see. The ingenious employment of the devices make you hear and make yon see, through the representation of various impressions, evokes in the reader the moral and emotional responses, which prepare for the disclosure of the theme. Therefore, I suppose Lord Jim's, achievement as a world masterpiece, to a great extent is inseparable from Conrad's original applications of impressionistic devices.