【作者】 乔修峰；

【导师】 宁一中；

【作者基本信息】 湖南师范大学 ， 英语语言文学， 2002， 硕士

【摘要】 约瑟夫·康拉德(1857-1924)，出生于俄帝国统治下的波兰，后加入英帝国商船队并取得英国国籍，进而定居英国用英语写作，却自称是“混在英国水手中的波兰贵族”，其复杂的帝国经历使其对帝国产生了独特的情怀，并发展为小说表现中的独特视角。他对欧洲殖民者在帝国异域场景中的描绘造就了他的一系列经典之作，《吉姆爷》(1900)便是其中之一。 这部诞生于世纪之交的作品素以其文体的复调、时间的错置、体裁的杂糅、意识形态的不确定性而著称。随着后殖民主义理论的兴起，越来越多的目光投向了康拉德的作品，这便为《吉姆爷》的解读开辟了新的天地，自然，也引发了更多的问题，本文以“帝国”为出发点，解释《吉姆爷》叙事研究中的一个争论的焦点，即小说两部分之间的“断裂”，质疑一个几乎众口一词的观点，即认为这部小说展示了康拉德对帝国主义意识形态的颠覆，由此为重新界定康拉德在后殖民主义批评中的坐标提出了设想。 “帝国”这一概念涵纳甚广，本文试从时间、空间、意识形态等三维界定它在文中的所指，并对与之相关甚密的帝国主义意识的两大支柱——欧洲中心主义和种族中心主义进行阐述，继而分析了“帝国”作为《吉姆爷》的主要场景在文中的体现。 《吉姆爷》主要叙述了吉姆的“帕特那”弃船事件和巴多森传奇，这两部分在情节和体裁风格上的迥异引起了颇多的争鸣。本文从“帝国”的角度来解读文中情节和观念的重复，从中发现，吉姆去巴多森并在那里取得成功的理据展示了情节发展的连贯（源于“失一寻” 的深层叙事结构）和体裁转换的必然（转向冒险小说或帝国传奇）。这既弥合了小说两部分之间的 “断裂”，也反映出此叙事建构中作者的帝国意识。 尽管诸多论者论述了康拉德如何在《吉姆爷》中结合自己边缘和被压迫的经历来颠覆帝国主义意识形态，却多从分析土著入手，而康拉德对这个有缺陷的殖民者一吉姆“爷”性格和外表的塑造似乎更能体现此点。但这颠覆中却暗含着一个未被说出的假设，揭示了生活在帝国中的康拉德对帝国主义意识形态的颠覆又最终落入它的案自，因为历史中的他首先是一个晚期帝国的英国人，其次才是一位作家。 最后，本文结合康拉德复杂的帝国经历，从《吉姆爷》的历史创作背景，即作者、读者、社会之间的对话来验证前面文本分析得出的结论，为重新界定康拉德的批评坐标提出新的设想。更多还原

【Abstract】 As ’a Polish nobleman cased in the British tar,’ Joseph Conrad never escapes the influence of empire in his whole life: a Pole running away from the Russian Empire, a seaman and later a citizen of the British Empire. His particular view of empire and his portrayal of the European colonial adventurers in the exotic empires turned themselves into a series of classic works. Lord Jim is one of them.Since its publication in 1900, Lord Jim remains an unsolved mystery by its stylistic polyphony, chronological insecurity, generic hybridity, and ideological indeterminacy. This thesis tries, in the light of ’empire,’ to reinterpret the ’break’ between the two parts of Lord Jim, and to query a generally-held view of this novel as subversion of imperialist ideology, so as to bring forward a tentative locating of Conrad in postcolonial criticism.The Introduction traces the interpretive history of Lord Jim with the focus on the postcolonial background, the analysis of which leads to two arguments and a proposal this thesis attempts to fulfill.Chapter One defines the working sense of ’empire’ from three dimensions-the temporal, the spatial and the ideological, with a brief survey of Eurocentrism and Ethnocentrism, two pillars of imperial thinking. Then it explores the textual presence of empire as the chief setting in Lord Jim.Chapter Two provides, on the basis of those recurrent episodes and ideas concerning empire, a new interpretation of the ’break’ between the Patna episode and the Patusan episode in the narrative construction. The motivation of Jim’s entry into and his success in Patusan bridges the ’break’ between the two parts in demonstratingboth the coherence of plot generating from the deep narrative structure of ’lose-quest’ (the Patna as ’Chance Lost’ and Patusan as ’Chance Regained’) and the inevitability of generic shift to adventure tale or imperial romance, in which Conrad’s imperial thinking is unmasked.Chapter Three explores, through repetitions of images, episodes and ideas, the characterization of ’Lord’ Jim as a faulty colonial lord. Many critics argue that Conrad employs discourse of domination to subvert imperialist ideology and cultural hegemony, but their studies are mostly confined to the relation between the whites and the natives. If Conrad does ’subvert,’ actually no subversion is greater than the collapse of Jim’s Patusan Empire. But such subversion turns out to be paradoxical, with its ’unsaid’ premise deeply rooted in the imperial thinking. To confirm this argument, this chapter analyses Jim’s death at the end of the novel.Chapter Four focuses on Conrad’s complicated imperial experiences and the productive conditions of Lord Jim, with the emphasis on the dialogue between the author, the reader and society, so as to introduce a proposal of relocating Conrad the novelist in postcolonial criticism.更多还原