Published Paper Details:

Despite being subject to manifold critical interventions in the past, Joseph Conrad's novels still invite further critical analysis by the recently developed theoretical paradigm of Ecocriticism. Ecocriticism, for its thoroughgoing exploration of the causative history of the 'otherization,' 'domination,' and 'exploitation' of Nature, finds The Enlightenment majorly responsible for such anthropocentric devaluation of Nature. Conrad's delineation of the man-Nature dialectic, however, seems to present a sustained critique of the Nature-derogating principles of The Enlightenment through its initial exposition and subsequent demolition of anthropocentrism. Such a reversal method takes us to a conclusion that Conrad does not promote the idea of man being the master of Nature, rather, establishes, in concurrence with what ecocritics would intend to ascertain in the end that man is nothing but an infinitesimally small element in the vast biotic life of Nature.