Author(s): Volha Korbut Salman*
Joseph Conrad wrote Nostromo (1904) at the crucial moment that witnessed the clash between the retreating nineteenth and the ensuing twentieth century. The period encompassed the point of no return towards the logical perfection of the Golden Age and ushered the world towards the meaningless chaos of modernity. The paper argues that being conscious of the approaching subservience of the traditional treatment of history to the random collection of histories typical of the twentieth century modernity, Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo is expressive of the persistent longing for the meaningful, solid, epic-like occurrences from the past, as opposed to the absurd mutability of contemporary histories. Yet, this yearning is devoid of any traces of hope and is, therefore, indicative of Conrad’s prophesy regarding the impossibility of certainty and meaningful history.
The Journal of International Social Research received 7760 citations as per Google Scholar report
