On The Traditional Features Of Conrad's Novellas

Conrad is generally regarded as a leading modernist, and theEncyclopedia Britannica ranks Conrad among such representative modernisticwriters as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. It isapparent that much more attention has been paid to the modernistic Conradthan to the traditional features that are profound in his works. This thesis is astudy on the traditional side of Conrad, drawing as examples his An Outpost ofProgress and The Secret Sharer.It is not without reason that Conrad and his works are usually associatedwith modernism. Chapter One makes a study on the modernistic featuresexemplified in Conrad's works, and points out that his works are similar tothose of modernists' in that they adopt some innovative narrative skills andconform with the gerneral shift from the outside world to the individual'sinner psychological world. Then in the following three chaptersâ… undertake todemonstrate in three perspectives that Conrad is rather traditional thanmodernistic. The first perspective is Conrad's language; the second, narrative;and the third, the obsessive concern of individual's morality.Literature is as much a matter of form as content. So it is reasonable toanalyze the traditional features of Conrad's works firstly in the perspective oflanguage. By a contrastive analysis, Chapter Two demonstrates that Conrad'sworks lack the lexical and grammatical deviations usually applied by other widely recognized modernists. Contrary to other modernists' practices,Conrad spares no effort to make his language as grammatical as beautiful. Italso explains that Conrad's conservative attitude to language is both a result ofthe fact that English is for him a later life acquisition and a logicalconsequence of the influences exerted upon him by traditional novelists.Chapter Three approaches the traditional Conrad in the perspective offictional techniques. And in this chapter a contrast is also made betweenConrad and other modernistic novelists whose works block the readers'smooth reading by their fragmentary plots. Here Conrad's traditionaltechniques are analyzed in two aspects: the aspect of narrative sequentialityand the aspect of coherent plot. Textual analysis in light of relevant theories inAristotle's poetics indicates that these two novellas exhibit the unit of plot anda clear chronological order which are characteristic of the Victorian novels.Chapter Four analyzes the traditional features of Conrad's works in termsof thematic element. That the Victorian novels are generally concerned withexplorations of moral issues is an accepted judgment that wouldn't invite toomuch challenge. What haunts Conrad's artistic mind is the same obsessiveconcern of the individual's moral dillemma as the Victorian novelists'. Conradlays paramount emphasis on the moral-didactic functions of literature. Thischapter makes a comparative textual analysis of the protagonists' fates in thesetwo novellas and draws the conclusion that the protagonists' different fates arejust consequences of their different personalities and moral choices. And italso points out that though Conrad is characteristically unwilling to make direct moral judgments in his works, his moral stance and value judgment canbe inferred from countless clues present or hinted in the texts.To sum up, this thesis runs counter to the popular claim that Conrad is amodernistic writer, and declares with substantial textual and theoreticalsupport that Conrad should rather be considered as a traditional novelist,whether in terms of technique or in terms of thematic element.