"One of these misty halos". Joseph Conrad and the Subversion of the Adventure Story

This thesis explores how the destabilization and subversion of the traditional adventure story genre in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899) and Lord Jim (1900) provide a critique of imperialism from within. Through the comparison with H. Rider's Haggards King Solomon's Mines", I discuss how Conrad's texts subvert the different dimensions of the genre of the adventure story. I claim that Conrad by subverting the adventure story genre - which I posit as both the primary outlet for imperial discourse in Britain and a recruitment tool aimed at youth - undermined both the British Empire's continuous need for public support as well as its future propagation