Literary Impressionism In Lord Jim

Joseph Conrad was an outstanding and innovative British novelist in the late 19th century, who strives to find a new form to convey his understanding of life. His works not only continue the literary traditions of the 19th century, but also illuminate with the charm of modernism in the 20th century.Lord Jim, one of Conrad's masterpieces, was published in 1900 at the juncture between realism and modernism and regarded as a masterpiece of impressionism. This thesis discusses the impressionistic techniques that Conrad employs in Lord Jim by looking at the impressionistic relationship between Marlow and Jim, Jim and Brown, and westerners and non-westerners as a whole, hoping to find out Conrad's initiative in artistic creation and his philosophical orientation, such as his conception of self and other, his knowledge about western civilization and even human experience. On the other hand, the harmony of color, light and mist images, the reproduction of visual effect and the rendering of subjective impressions, all help to create a vague and uncertain atmosphere for the novel and to reveal the inner world of characters. The reader is promoted to an active participation in the rendering of impressionist collages with moral and emotional responses.