조셉 콘라드의 인상주의와 「청춘」

Joseph Conrad's Impressionism and "Youth"

Literary impressionism emphasizes sensory perception, shifting angles of vision, and subjectivity. The early modernists, including Henry James and Joseph Conrad, employed impressionistic literary techniques to express their sense of "modern spirit", that is, relativism, subjectivism, scepticism, and uncertainty. This paper scrutinizes Conrad's literary impressionism and its uses in "Youth" in two ways. One is Ian Watt's "delayed decoding," a device which presents a sense impression in a descriptive passage and withholds naming it or explaining its meaning until later. The other is its application to the narrative strategies of the whole text. Two examples of the delayed decoding show the emphasis on the sensory and subjective perception, resulting in the vivid description and the sudden, and sometimes, shocking understanding of the real situation. The whole narrative of "Youth" includes the multiple points of view, consisting of young Marlow (focalizer), middle-aged Marlow (narrator), and the frame narrator and the reader. The main impressionistic strategy involves the two Marlows' attitudes to their experience of voyage to the East. The young responds to the real situation of the voyage with romantic idealism and rashness, and the middle-aged reflects on his past experience with scepticism and pessimism. The difference shows the impressionistic relativity and subjectivity of each person's perception and knowledge, and even those of the same person's at a different time and space.