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The motif of the water journey as a metaphor for philosophical enquiry in selected novels of Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad

Student Number : 7639580 -
MA research report -
Faculty of Humanities / This research report explores the motif of the water journey as a metaphor for philosophical
enquiry in Melville and Conrad by comparing Moby-Dick with Heart of Darkness, and Billy
Budd, Sailor with Lord Jim. It takes as its starting-point M.H. Abrams’s essay, “Spiritual
Travelers in Western Literature”, and adapts the typology which he introduces by identifying
four different kinds of fictional journey, namely, the physical, the experiential, the narrative and
the hermeneutic. By concentrating on a broadly-based semiotic approach to interpretation
(while also allowing for other critical possibilities), it examines Melville and Conrad’s
treatment of certain pivotal issues in metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. It compares the
narrative strategies of the two authors and, by offering close readings of the four texts under
discussion, it highlights the similarities and differences in the authors’ responses to a universe
of teasing complexity, as well as exploring the reader’s engagement with such texts.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/2174
Date01 March 2007
CreatorsRossouw, Leon Armand
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
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