Joseph Conrad e as arestas da ironia

Abstract

This thesis aims to illuminate in J. Conrad's literature a style or tone different from the expected. I evince that through irony, the opposite of the ideal of progress comes to exist as euphemisms. Therefore, the reader’s relationship with the artwork is valued, after all, irony is not irony until it is interpreted as such. Moving beyond its verbal forms, in the First Part of this thesis I investigate the different ways through which irony operates. Thus, I argue that J. Conrad's literature holds strategies that expose a paradoxical conscience, a result of the Enlightenment ideal. In order to sustain this argument, I adopted the texts Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim and Chance as conducting wires. This thesis offers that these texts are marked by an unresolvable conflict between impossibility and the need for effective communication. Based on the author's negotiations with the artifices he employs through language-game, I consider that the processes of differentiation and relation involve a rapid oscillation between two different meanings. In this case, denotation and connotation cannot be seen concomitantly, but are inextricable. Finally, I advise that the reflection based on the assumption of the relationship between irony and political action in J. Conrad's literature and other examples be understood not as cause and effect, but as a discursive space that creates possibilities for new political and cultural thoughts.