Absurd World

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) can be reckoned as one of the most outstanding English writers in the twentieth century. As a keen artist, he prides himself for his far-reaching horizon, his great concern on his era and society, and his great efforts to seek fresh artistic techniques to interpret social reality. The Secret Agent is Conrad's representative work which reflects English social political life in Edwardian age. F. R. Leavis proclaimed it"indubitably a classic and a masterpiece". Whereas, in recent years, most Chinese Conrad critics just limit their attention to Heart of Darkness (1899), Lord Jim (1900) and Nostromo(1904)other than The Secret Agent.Existentialism is defined as a philosophic irrational trend of thought. French philosophers Sartre and Camus are the representative figures of Existentialism. Existentialists claim that human life is absurd and meaningless, the world is irrational, illogical and absurd. Absurdity strikes the core of existentialism. In Camus'viewpoint, the world is utterly without absolute meaning, which he leads as an isolated stranger beset by conditions that restrict and thwart him. Sartre holds the same view with Camus: the obstinate world of sheer brute objects—has no reason, no teleological cause. The individual identity that man creates for himself—is constantly in a state of chance contingency with all that surrounds him, and both he and his circumambient world are wholly ungrounded, making for a condition of"fundamental absurdity". This absurdity is only too evident in the world of Conrad's The Secret Agent, whether as a pervasive sensation or a momentary one induced by personal crisis. In The Secret Agent, the Greenwich Park explosion was a thing of"utter inanity"to anarchist Ossipon, what Conrad's prefatory notes speaks of as an"absurd cruelty". Mr. Vladimir in the Foreign Embassy intended the bombing to be"an act of destructive ferocity so absurd to be incomprehensible, inexplicable, and almost unthinkable with all the shocking senselessness of gratuitous blasphemy".On the basis of the theory of absurdity, this thesis holds to narration and human experience, then, it launches a detailed analysis to the absurd external world, the absurd characters and the meaningless human existence revealed in The Secret Agent, the thesis also explores Conrad's deep-going interpretation to human absurd living circumstances and takes further steps to probe into his moral concern on the absurd world.To begin with, the thesis mainly gives a literature review, and a brief introduction to the innovative thoughts, analyzing techniques and the related theory of existentialism. Then, the thesis analyzes Conrad's dealing with language and structure in absurd way, meanwhile, it puts forward that Conrad drops a hint to an irrational world by employing illogical and self-contradictory language, along the way, Conrad demonstrates the chaotic world by using interlocking and circulating narrative structure, which reveals Conrad's emphasis and highlight on absurd social essence. Afterwards, this thesis approaches to the absurd external world, the absurd characters and the meaningless human existence. Lastly, the thesis inquires into Conrad's moral concern on the absurd world, and points out that Conrad aims to transcend absurdity by means of moral critique. The conclusion, based on the above analysis, is as follows: although Conrad refrains from giving readers any hints of hope of new life in The Secret Agent, yet, he presents readers the absurd human experience in the absurd world by his absurd narration, more importantly, Conrad hopes to overcome the absurdity in the world by launching a profound criticism upon moral degeneration.