This study focuses on texts exploring human proclivity to violent behaviour. Building on the anthropological insights of René Girard, and on the premise that literature is a reflection of a cultural moment, Curyłło-Klag shows how early modernism registers symptoms of crisis which even the outbreak of World War I failed to resolve. Arranged in chronological order, the works of Conrad, Lewis and Lawrence reveal an unfolding pattern and form a triptych, indicative of the growing intensity of the epoch in which they were produced.

"The merit of the work is to tap into the deep layer of communications and mutual conflict as literary form, symbolism of gestures and behaviors, in a word of what Irving Goffman defines in his sociological analysis as a 'presentation of self'."

Krystyna Stamirowska