On The Strength And Beauty Of First-Person Narrative

Joseph Conrad has been widely acknowledged as a versatile intermediary between the Romantic and Victorian traditions and the innovations of Modernism in the history of English novel. Besides, he is also one of the few writers who won popularity among both critics as well as common readers in his lifetime.The Shadow-line, so called an autobiographical novel, is one of Conrad's masterpieces. The young captain T receives his first command as captain and directs a course independently. During the voyage, the ship is surrounded by mysterious atmosphere as if being cursed by the late captain who dies on sea. Finally, T successfully direct the ship across 'the shadow-line', which is the 8° 20' north latitude, where the late captain is buried. And 'the shadow-line' is endowed with many symbolic meanings concerned with the thematic exploration of this novel.Conrad has a rather oblique narrative style, which is not only exceptionally sophisticated and varied but also remarkably productive thematically. This thesis demonstrates on the narrative and thematic unity of The Shadow-line from the aspect of narratologly. The whole novel is a retrospective first-person narrative in form of a sustained act of intensified memory. The most distinctive feature of this retrospective first-person narrative is the double focus resulted from two perspectives of first-person narrative, perspective of narration and perspective of experience. These two perspectives can reflect that T, in different periods of time, can have different opinions and understandings towards the same experience. First-person narrative of The Shadow-line is thus characterized by its flexibility and immediacy. Conrad displays a masterful narrative mobility of variation between these two perspectives, proceeding together with the thematic exploration on the passage from youth to maturity, and on the discussion of antithesis of innocence and experience, life and death, sanity and insanity. The narrative success of The Shadow-line, on the one hand, is intimately connected with the high degree of narrative and thematic unification, on the other hand, reflects a kind of strength and beauty of first-person narrative.