The Exploration Of Morality In The Conflict Of Civilizations

Joseph Conrad(1857-1924) was a modern British writer. His immortal masterpiece Heart of Darkness is considered to be one of the most profound novellas of the twentieth century. The story is of a journey deep into the heart of Africa that the protagonist Marlow makes to find Kurtz. It is not only a voyage into the interior of Africa, but a voyage of exploration and discovery into the interior of the human heart. In this fierce collision between Western civilization and primitive civilization, Western civilization is defeated in this battle to rot in the jungle. The colonists, due to their lack of constraint of civilization, overindulge in the greed of human nature, and gradually became ‘hollow men’ of moral degradation. In this novella instead of extricating himself from pessimism, Conrad tries to warn the world through this work. If a person wants to obtain salvation and become a real man he must recognize his sins and mobilize his faith to overcome them.We know that all literary works can provide spiritual nourishment and guidelines for human beings. The study of ethics implied in works of literature is the foundation of understanding any writer’s ideas. Based on this understanding, this thesis selects the most representative work of Conrad — Heart of Darkness as its object of study in order to investigate the characteristics of Conrad’s ethics, their formation mechanism, in detail, and the embodiment of their ethic morality.This thesis includes an introduction and four main chapters.The introduction discusses the research background of Conrad in China and abroad. In this part, the author’s work is analyzed from both foreign and domestic aspects in order to introduce the direction of the research as well as the results of academia’s research of Conrad’s works. The author’s illustration of his own overall grasp of ethical moral values is also discussed.The first chapter discusses Conrad’s morality based on his personal experience and the background of the times he lived in, in order to analyze the formation mechanism of Conrad’s morality.The second chapter discusses Western civilization in the African jungle. By analyzing the conflict between Western civilization and the wilderness it highlights the decline of Western civilization and how morality decayed in the jungle without the constraint of civilization.The third chapter describes “the loss of morality” and “moral degeneration” through deep analysis to illustrate how Kurtz, a member of elite of Western society, gradually loses his humanity and himself in the moral darkness of the jungle.The fourth chapter concerns “moral restoration”. This part uses the character Marlow as a point of departure to discuss the moral ideas of Conrad in even greater detail.