The Problem Of Existence And Alienation In Conrad’s Lord Jim - Conrad’in Lord Jim’ İnde Varlik Ve Yabancilaşma Problemi

Abstract

The great technological and political developments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had a great impact on the rigid social order and the individual in the twentieth century. Uncontrolled expanse of technology led to man’s estrangement from the world he himself had made or inherited, in a word, man’s alienation from himself, from the world and from other people. At that period, people who had been living as small groups in villages, towns, and small cities and had been mostly guided by religious values, traditions and customs, left aside these values and began to rush into the urban centres where living conditions proved to be inadequate. Man, having been deprived of his natural surroundings and of his natural ties, also began to have great changes in his personality and character. The present analysis is intended to shed light on the problem of existence and alienation in Conrad’s Lord Jim in the light of Existentialism, which questions man’s place in the universe, characteristics of existence, effects and responses of existence, and the problem of alienation.