Postcolonial Studies Of The Images Of “the Other” In Lord Jim

Joseph Conrad comes from Poland and plays an important role in the British literary field of the 20 th century. Lord Jim is one of the most influential novels and known as the first outstanding modern novel in the 20 th century. Since published, it has received wide attention from the critics. These critics have interpreted this novel from many different aspects to expand and enrich its connotation. Therefore, this thesis tries to apply Edward W. Said’s postcolonial theories to vividly portray the distorted images of these natives in Lord Jim and explore its cultural connotations to further enrich researches on this novel.This thesis tries to analyze the images of “the Other” in Lord Jim. The concept of “the Other” comes from Said’s book Orientalism. Orientalism is western imperialism’s cultural manipulation and distortion on eastern culture in order to rule the eastern countries and peoples. Joseph Conrad, the author of this novel, holds a contradictory attitude towards the natives. He belongs to both the groups of imperialism and anti-imperialism. As a novelist in 20 th century, he can not get rid of his prejudice towards the easterners and his sense of superiority. What he wrote was for the westerners, so he stood for the westerners all the time and there are a lot of descriptions in Lord Jim on the distorted images of the natives. By analyzing some representatives of the native characters and the viewpoints of the white, this thesis demonstrates how the East is otherized and constructed by the West. Meanwhile the images of the natives also have been distorted and silenced, even alienated by the west. In Lord Jim, the East has been depicted as the other world.This thesis is composed of three chapters. In the first chapter, it mainly presents the distorted images of the otherized natives in modern world, including the American and British writers and the concrete works from the aspects of Said who puts forward the concept of “the Other”, the author of Lord Jim and the mainly narrator of this novel Marlow. In the second chapter, it has picked two characters in this novel. They are Dain Waris and Tamb’Itam who belong to the ethic subaltern and follow Jim till the end. They stand for the silenced natives who are willing to accept the marginalized identity and position and are deprived of the ability to express and show them. In the third chapter, it mainly portrays how these white people as Cornelius and the mixblood Jewel’s get alienated. In fact, these white men are also the victims of the colonial activities.In this paper, it is more clear about Conrad’s imperial ideology and the disasters that the colonial activities will bring to the colonized areas and the colonizers. Therefore, with the development of globalization, no matter the east of the west they should strive for an equal and harmonious relationship. The natives should protect their own culture and adopt a critical attitude towards the western civilization and the whites to find their own identity. The westerners also should avoid the thought of Euro centralism and regard these natives without prejudice.