1. 研究目的与意义（文献综述）

joseph conrad was born in the upper class in poland in 1857, then fled to france. he learned english by himself and became the world-renowned writer in english. he had a prominent position in the history of british literature and was the pioneer of british modernist novels. conrad inherited the experiment and reform of english novels started by henry james. his works are not only known as impressionism, but also shock people's minds with their tragic qualities. he believed that "moral discovery should be the goal of every story" and stressed “the pain of losing dignity”. he is best at writing marine adventure novels. chinese writer lao she called him "the greatest creator of realm and personality in modern times".

the lagoon is one of joseph conrad's short story. it's easy to relate it with conrad's another famous work heart of darkness, an exploration of the depths of human minds. the lagoon is another one but its location moved from africa's congo river to the asian malay jungle, and the main characters changed from the european colonial pioneers to the native malay.

domestic research on the lagoon is generally from conrad's overall writing style or with other works together, after all, the lagoon isn’t very well-known between conrad’s many works. researchers mainly study it from following aspects: conrad's colonialism, the tragic features of his novel, the framework of narrative techniques and through the psychological analysis of the character to show the fall of human nature and morality and so on. but the analysis of settings in the lagoon is few. in 2014, the paper the inner world of characters presented by the scene description in the lagoon written by naheya, analyzing conrad’s unique writing techniques and presenting the relationship between the scene description and the complex and selfish side of human nature, is relatively similar to the settings analysis.

2. 研究的基本内容与方案

this paper works on the setting description in conrad’s short story the lagoon and it can be divided into following four parts. firstly, an introduction to the writer and his works. in this part, conrad’s literary status and influence and his representative works will be presented. in addition, brief summary of the lagoon will be given and maybe summarize heart of darkness, too. because there are some similarities between these two works which are worth noticing.

secondly, the general situation of researches on the lagoon abroad and at home will be introduced to as a reference, good points of previous researches and other methodology may be adopted. thirdly, it is also the most important part of this paper, which will elaborate the natural setting and social setting in the lagoon, and its significance. i will consult many relevant and respective studies of conrad’s works to explore the technique and wordings used for natural setting’s formation and its each effects. the significance of the author’s social setting conducing to the keynote of the novel will be discussed, too.

finally, the meaning of the research will be claimed in the conclusion. given that there are few studies about the setting analysis of the lagoon, this paper will research the lagoon from a relatively new perspective.

3. 研究计划与安排

before 20th january : settlement of the title

before20th march: submission of the outline

4. 参考文献（12篇以上）

[1] chifane,#8194;cristina. the impact of marginalization in joseph conrad’s tales and novels[j].interstudia (review of interdisciplinary centre for studies of contemporary discursive forms),2013,no.13:49-57

[2] carmen, gago, alvarez. the lagoon a study in imagery[j]. ilha do desterro a journal of english language, literatures in english and cultural studies,1981,vol.2(6):46-59