Emotions versus Self-knowledge in Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim and The Shadow-Line
Emotions versus Self-knowledge in Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim and The Shadow-Line

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to examine the impact that emotions exert on the process of acquisition of self-knowledge in the case of the main protagonists of Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim and his The Shadow-Line. What is characteristic of both is that the continuity of their safe established lives is disrupted by their sudden and impulsive actions, which determine their fates and consciousnesses: Jim’s fatal jump from the Patna, and a seemingly unmotivated resignation from a satisfactory job of the young Captain, respectively. Both actions seem to have been a result of the characters’ excessive self-centredeness, their mood swings, overheated imagination, self-delusion and undervalued self-estimation, which are typical of youth, a period marked by disproportionate emotionality and a necessity to take decisions which will shape one’s future life. In Conrad’s world, pursuit of self-knowledge assumes the proportions of a moral imperative of every human being. The cases of Jim and the young Captain are considered against the backdrop of Conrad’s epistemological scepticism and heroic ethics.

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