Unaware of the practicality of these notions in literature, hapless Jim propels himself to reverse fiction and change it to reality. Jim is a young man and he makes an irrevocable decision to become a hero and embody the values of heroic deeds in real situations like the way he reads them in literature. The victim of literature which this paper tries to illustrate is Jim. Startlingly, presenting the fiction into reality may trigger a disastrous impact upon its readers. On the other hand, this “dulcet et utile” literature can delude the readers and entice them to try the fictional event of the narrative in their real lives. In Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim, the protagonist Jim is inspired by some works of literature which are enchanting and didactic. Sidney maintains that literature twists the language to provide wider and more conceptual inquiries. ‘Literature’s ultimate aim, declares Horace, is “dulcet et utile”, to be sweet and useful.’The best writings, he claims, both teach and delight. What follows then is a scrutiny of Lord Jim that reveals the ethical matters that emerge from the joining of fiction and reality in the ideal of romance. This probe occurs not only in the domain of colonialism, however, but also in that of narrative itself, so that the novel displays a certain incredulous self-reflexivity of the kind usually contested by Said to those orientalising authors he seeks to critique. It is precisely this problem of distorted boundaries between fictional values and the lived experience of reality that Conrad seeks to unravel in the novel. The idealizing rhetoric of justification that Said ascertains has already been fully adopted by Jim so that he fails to identify its fictional root. Interestingly anticipating this critique, in Lord Jim, Conrad explores the ramifications of such idealization both for the colonies and, more particularly, for the colonisers. Key word: fiction, reality, didactic literature, colonialismĭeriving deeply from the opening of Conrad`s Heart of Darkness, Edward Said`s Orientalism advocates that imperialism acquisitiveness was excused through an anthropological rhetoric of geography. Unaware of the practicality of these notions in literature, hapless Jim propels himself to reverse fiction and change it to reality, but he fails. The victim of literature which this paper tries to elucidate is Jim. Intriguingly, presenting the fiction into reality may cause a terrible impact upon its readers. This didactic literature can deceive the readers and tempt them to attempt the fictional event of the narrative in their real lives. In Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim, the protagonist Jim is motivated by some works of literature which are charming and didactic. Kheirallah Helichi (M.A of English literature, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz) abstract The Negative Side of Literature: A Reevaluation of Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim
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