"Wtedy zaczął się mój upadek...". Egzystencjalne dylematy bohaterów Józefa Conrada i Alberta Camusa
"That is when my fall began...". Existential dilemmas of the characters in novels by Joseph Conrad and Albert Camus

Summary/Abstract: The article uses the notion of 'border' in the interpretation of psychological and ethical themes in "Lord Jim" by J. Conrad and "The Fall" by A. Camus. The heroes of these novels realise that they had made bad use of their freedom , and the moment in which this happened had marked their lives irrevocably, and divided it into zones of rise and fall. After this moment nothing would be as it used to. Throughout the centuries literature has developed language to express the fundamental experience of this kind; it tells the stories of people experiencing the traumatic force of a demarcation moment, which after passing, leaves no posibility of returning to the life before; it creates alternative worlds inhabited by people who seek the truth about their "I", it constructs situations that embodies our anxiety resulting from the fact that man is not "redy and finished", and in the flowing "here and now" he does deeds which shape his destiny. "The Fall" indirectly includes the question of attitude of modern world towards Condrad's ethos.

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