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'

however, is given a different interpretation through the centrality of his insistence on the attempt to re-establish, even if only for a moment, the harmony of man and God. The Conradian insistence on being suspended in this Biblical idyllic status in Lord Jim took Jim East. The similarities and differences between the trials of the two books can easily be established and might prove quite relevant. The myth of innocence recreated by Jim is interpreted mainly by Jim, who maintains his status as the son of the British Empire. Kurtz identifies with the position of a pagan god of his own creation and thus the idyllic environment ceases to be idyllic and refuses to provide him with the awareness of the myth that he is trying to recreate. It is Marlow who attempts to impose Christian value judgements on the world dominated by Kurtz, but the Christian myth is incompatible with the pagan legend, although the central metaphor of that idolatry comes to dominate the twentieth century man, the unquestionable protagonist of the novella. Ivory generates power and mystifies its quality as dead matter. The myth of the Congo assumes the quality of a structure within a structure: it has, just like the book taken as a whole, a total structure in that it starts and ends as a meditation on myth and power, enclosing the demonstration of how imperialism turns against itself and its idols. The truth about the creation of Kurtz's world is revealed, as is the Apocalypse of that world, and this inquiry never ceases to be suspended between the two meditations set in the civilised world as they serve as its beginning and end. Through analogy, transfer of symbols and metaphors the two worlds and their respective mythologies overlap, creating new meanings to both levels. The Biblical environment cannot be equated with the possibility of a new act of creation and as a consequence the hope of the alienated twentieth century man to reinforce his faith in a universe governed by Christian myth and get reconciled with his own status in this century is undermined. The world envisaged by the book does not succumb to its interpretation of itself as a living hell because it comes to be dominated by the coherence of its sociohistorical and mythical dimensions, further perfected by the dissonant quality of its use of mythological and linguistic metaphors. As we have already mentioned, in reference to his mission in the service of the company Marlow, dismisses the idea of his being a lower kind of apostle, but paradoxically he adopts all through his journey a Biblical discourse. 156