A New Probe into the Hero Motif in Conrad’s Novels: Lord Jim and Nostromo

Foreign Literature Studies ›› 2019, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (3): 117-128.

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A New Probe into the Hero Motif in Conrad’s Novels: Lord Jim and Nostromo

Zhou Xiaochuan, Zhu Binzhong

Published:2022-05-23
About author:Zhou Xiaochuan is a lecturer at Zhou Youguang School of Languages and Cultures, Changzhou University (Changzhou 213100, China) and a PhD candidate of English language and literature at the School of Foreign Language and Literature, Wuhan University (Wuhan 430070, China). His research interests include American and British Literature．Email: kevinzhou0530@163.com; Zhu Binzhong is a professor at the School of Foreign Language and Literature, Wuhan University (Wuhan 430070, China). His research interests include English and American Literature and Comparative Literature.
Supported by:
The Independent Scientific Research Project of Wuhan University (Humanities and Social Sciences) “A Study of the Current Leading Researches abroad of English Classical Writers”（413000035）

Abstract

Abstract: “Hero” is the eternally immutable motif in literary works, and suffering is the key to the hero’s accomplishment of his mission and his personal sublimation. Conrad infiltrates into his novels his philosophical contemplation about the hero’s humanity and divinity. Both Lord Jim and Nostromo rely heavily on the ethical reflection of the hero’s traumatic ordeal in depicting a recurrent “divinity-humanity-divinity” cycle of heroic growth that is triggered and sustained by “suffering”. A typical Conradian hero is, in this sense, an integrated embodiment of both the trauma of humanity and the recuperation of divinity, whereas the exploration of the hero’s humanity and divinity seems to have become an important component of Conrad’s trauma narrative in his novels.

Key words: Conrad, hero motif, humanity and divinity, trauma

Zhou Xiaochuan, Zhu Binzhong. A New Probe into the Hero Motif in Conrad’s Novels: Lord Jim and Nostromo[J]. Foreign Literature Studies, 2019, 41(3): 117-128.

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A New Probe into the Hero Motif in Conrad’s Novels: Lord Jim and Nostromo

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