Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. Vol. 1. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 24)

Tibor Tóth: Conrad's 'Secret Garden'

many occasions as the possibility arises, but the attempt itself is sufficient to trap him. He falls victim to a modernist axiom: the modern man is the victim of a universe violated in the name of social and moral advancement. The impossibility of mastering the modern world and returning to an initial state of innocence is again - as on so any occasions - expressive of Conrad's temperamental scepticism. Similar relevance is conferred in the book to the 'homesickness' and the failures of the victim of the consciousness of Imperialist Britain. Conrad is aware of the necessity of what Northrop Frye calls the mythological universe'in his attempt to support the narrative survey of the socio-historical dilemmas formulated in his novels and short stories. His novels are not restricted to his own personal, or his narrator's encounters with the, for him, paradoxical valuejudgements and truth value of the early twentieth century. Conrad insists on the presence of the mythological universe in a world that is deconstructing its own mythological status. The Thames is an interminable waterway linking the dark-aired city with the sea "holding our hearts together through long periods of separation,"

2and it informs us of the possibility of transcending time, space and divine meanings. The Congo is the medium for a heroic attempt to reinterpret the meanings of this mythical universe by imposing the old metaphor on its misinterpretations. "The tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth"

3 under the overcast sky reveals the impossibility of interpretation in the mythological universe established by the narrative. Christian mythology seems to fail at this point. The attempt to bring back the harmony based on its teachings and wisdom lead us even deeper into the "heart of an immense darkness."

4 These three stations are telling of a conceptual unity supporting the imaginative unity of the Conradian text. Marlow, meditating on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of his lie, of any benevolent lie, does not kneel down in front of an altar, but sits apart "in the pose of a meditating Buddha,"

5 suggesting that if Christian mythology is not enough, other mythological expeditions are possible and desirable. Conrad's treatment of the Christian myth, 1 Fryc, Northrop: The Great Code

, Toronto: Academic Press Canada, 1982 2 Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness, London: Bantam Books, 1989, 3-4 ' Heart of Darkness, 132 4 Heart of Darkness, 132 5 Heart of Darkness

, 132 155