『로드 짐』에 나타난 도덕적 주체성의 문제

Abstract

This essay aims to trace the moral vision in Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim and its articulation, focusing on the hero, Jim's subjective and independent attitudes to his life. The hero Jim is against the customs and conventions of his society and pursues his own dream to be a hero. His dream is romantic and idealistic in that his pursuit is beyond the realities and his main concern is honour of his own sake. But Conrad shows many aspects of his actions through the narrator Marlow's continuing and developing responses to Jim. Jim's encounters with other characters give us some insights of his character. He does not admit his own limits as a human. Also, he is egocentric and does not recognize the existence of the other, making him alienated from others. The aescetic world of his own collapses when the other side of his self, Brown intrudes into his consciousness. Jim's death is not tragic but romantic because he always runs away from the realties and lives in his own dream. He is one of us. His attitudes to life is too much subjective and lacks the balance and order of Stein. His frustrated quest for personal salvation is Conrad's distressing prophecy for the modern man.