Mantex

Tutorials, Study Guides & More

  • HOME
  • REVIEWS
  • TUTORIALS
  • HOW-TO
  • CONTACT
>> Home / Tutorials / 20C Authors / Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad

tutorials, biographical notes, commentary, and web links

tutorials, study guides, web links and commentary

A Smile of Fortune

June 12, 2009 by Roy Johnson

a harbour tale

A Smile of Fortune is one of Joseph Conrad’s lesser-known long stories. He was essentially a nineteenth century writer who anticipated and then lived into the modernist age of the early twentieth century, helping to shape its spirit of uncertainty, anxiety, and moral ambiguity. Even his own life and works share the contradictions of the era. He is best known as an author of mannish sea tales, yet he only achieved success with a novel set largely on dry land which had a woman as its central character (Flora Barral in Chance).

A Smile of FortuneHe is now regarded as a great figure in the tradition of the English novel, yet he was Polish, and English was his third language. He’s also regarded as something of a conservative, yet his political views were scathingly radical (see The Secret Agent).

A Smile of Fortune comes from his mature period (1911) and features the familiar Conradian device of a young sea captain who is confronted by a puzzling ethical dilemma. The first person narrator is a confirmed bachelor given to a philosophic approach to life, but whom Conrad cleverly makes vulnerable to the duplicities of the more experienced people around him.

He arrives at an island in the Indian Ocean to take on a cargo of sugar, but is also given an open invitation by his ship’s owners to do trade with a local merchant.

The trader turns out to have a brother, and the two of them have diametrically opposed characters: one is socially well respected, but is a brute; the other is a social outcast who wishes to ingratiate himself with the unnamed narrator.

For reasons he himself cannot fully understand, the captain opts for the outcast and allows himself to be drawn into his domestic life whilst waiting for his ship to be made ready. The principal attraction for this delay is a mysterious young woman, who might be the trader’s daughter, with whom the young captain becomes romantically obsessed.

The trader meanwhile is encouraging the captain’s attentions, whilst trying to lure him into a speculative commercial venture. It’s as if the young man is being lured and tempted on two fronts – the erotic and the pecuniary.

In typically modernist fashion, this conflict reaches an unexpected and ambiguous resolution which despite the captain’s commercial profit leads to his resigning his commission and heading back home.

Formally, it’s a long short story, rather than a novella such as The Secret Sharer and The Shadow Line with which it is frequently collected. And in terms of achievement, it seems to me to fall between the level of those excellent longer tales and the often embarrassingly bad short stories which Conrad turned out at the height of his commercial success.

It’s a story full of symbols and half-concealed inferences which is crying out for (at least) Freudian analysis, and can certainly be added to the list of lesser-known tales which deserve interpretive attention from anyone who admires Conrad’s achievement.

© Roy Johnson 2008

A Smile of Fortune Buy the book at Amazon UK

A Smile of Fortune Buy the book at Amazon US


Joseph Conrad, A Smile of Fortune, London: Hesperus Press, 2007, pp.79, ISBN 184391428X


More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
Joseph Conrad complete tales


Filed Under: Conrad - Tales, Joseph Conrad, Short Stories, The Short Story Tagged With: A Smile of Fortune, Joseph Conrad, Literary studies, Modernism, The Short Story

Almayer’s Folly

August 19, 2012 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

Almayer’s Folly (1895) was Joseph Conrad’s first novel, It deals with events which take place around 1887 in the Malay Archipelago, where Conrad had spent some time as a seaman. Many of the characters in the story are based on real people he met around that time. Some of these people crop up again in his second novel An Outcast of the Islands which deals with events that take place earlier, in 1872. An Outcast is what might in modern media terms be called a ‘prequel’ to the first novel. There is also a third volume in the series called The Rescue that deals with events set even further back in the 1850s – but this was not published until 1920.

Joseph Conrad - author of Almayer's Folly

Joseph Conrad


Almayer’s Folly – critical commentary

Race

Despite all the local political rivalries and machinations, the temporal complexities of the plot, and the problem of tracking who is where in geographic terms – the most striking underlying theme in the novel is that of race.

Conrad’s family were Polish political refugees who had been exiled in Russia; he spoke French and English as his second and third languages; and by the time he became a writer he had travelled around the world

Almayer has agreed to marry Captain Lingard’s adopted Philippino daughter in exchange for a business partnership (a subject dealt with at greater length in An Outcast of the Islands). His wife has grown to detest him. This is partly justified by the fact that he is lazy, incompetent, and a boor. But she hates other white men too. She is very conscious that they come with kind words – and carry guns. She shares this view with Lambaka – with whom she has been having an affair.

She also conspires with the other local nationalists in their plots against Almayer and the trading post – and she is complicit in the gruesome disfigurement of the drowned corpse. This is a move designed to cover Dain Maroola’s tracks in his flight with Nina. Mrs Almayer approves of this match – partly because it has brought her money in the form of the dowry, but on racial grounds, because she feels that Nina will bring honour and dignity on herself by association with a Balinese prince.

Almayer himself, on the other hand, feels racially affronted by Nina’s attachment to Dain. He thinks of her as ‘white’ and European educated, and he feels she is lowering and demeaning herself in this relationship – even though Dain is a prince in his own society.

Nina herself undergoes a transformation of consciousness when she falls in love with Dain. She is at first torn between her western and eastern cultural heritage. But the force of her feelings is reinforced by a powerful sense of racial bonding with Dain She is proud to love Dain and devote herself to him. She too, like her mother, scorns the Europeans. She even finally rejects her own father when he demands that she obey him.

Critical approaches

A great deal of the first critical commentary on these early works is focused on their accuracy in relation to what was known of Conrad’s biography. That is, the works were assessed on the basis of the relation between their fictional representations and the real places he had visited, the real people he had met, and even the books he had read.

That is understandable given the conventions of literary criticism at the time. But now we recognise that authors are not in the least obliged to make a faithful copy of ‘reality’. They can pick and choose from the real world and from their imaginations exactly as they see fit. Our only demands as readers is that the result should be convincing.

Setting

In the first part of the novel Almayer recalls his earlier days in Macassar, a provincial capital in southern Indonesia. The remainder and majority of the events take place in the fictional town of Sambir, which is loosely based on Berau in north-east Borneo (today called Kalimantan) very close to the equator.

The river Pantai on which Sambir is based plays an important part in the story. Captain Lingard has established his prosperous trading business based on his monopoly of navigational skills on the river which is the source of much annoyance to his business rivals.


Almayer’s Folly – study resources

Almayer's Folly - Wordsworth edition Almayer’s Folly – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon UK

Almayer's Folly - Wordsworth edition Almayer’s Folly – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon US

Almayer's Folly - Kindle edition Almayer’s Folly – Kindle eBook

Almayer's Folly - Dover edition Almayer’s Folly – Dover Thrift – Amazon UK

Almayer's Folly - Dover edition Almayer’s Folly – Dover Thrift – Amazon US

Almayer's Folly - eBook Almayer’s Folly – eBook at Project Gutenberg

Joseph Conrad - biography Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Amazon UK

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Red button Routledge Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Red button Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Amazon UK

Conrad - Notes on Life and Letters Notes on Life and Letters – Amazon UK

Conrad - biography Joseph Conrad – biographical notes

Almayer's Folly


Almayer’s Folly – plot summary

Almayer's FollyAt the outset of the novel Almayer thinks back to his earliest days in Macassar when Captain Lingard offered him a partnership in exchange for marrying his adopted Philippino daughter. Since then Almayer’s fortunes have sunk, and he yearns to become wealthy and return to Europe with his half-caste daughter Nina. He now feels distinctly hostile towards his wife – a feeling which is reciprocated. He sends Nina to Singapore to be educated amongst Europeans. The experiment is not successful, and she returns home. Lingard seems to be missing somewhere in Europe.

Almayer begins to construct a large residence and reception centre for British traders and military, but jurisdiction in Sambir passes from British to Dutch hands. Local chief Abdulla offers Almayer money in exchange for his daughter who he wishes to marry to his nephew Reshid – but Almayer indignantly refuses.

Then Balinese prince Dain Maroola (masquerading as a trader) visits Almayer, and although very little trade is done he is visually impressed by Nina. He pays Mrs Almayer money (a dowry) to allow him access to Nina for courtship. Mrs Almayer is happy to do this for financial as well as racial reasons.

Almayer also has grandiose dreams of exploring for gold in the interior of the country. He prepares boats for the expedition, even though he has no idea where this gold is located. Meanwhile Dain meets Nina secretly for romantic trysts, and she feels drawn to him culturally, despite her European ‘education’.

Dain meets Lambaka to discuss policy and despite being threatened, he departs during a thunderstorm to meet Nina. He is apparently drowned during the storm, and washed up as an almost headless corpse at Almayer’s compound the next morning.

Taminah, a simple seller of cakes has secretly observed the Nina-Dain relationship and is desperately jealous because she is herself in love with Dain. She sees Nina as a ‘white’ interloper.

Meanwhile a Dutch ship arrives, the officers of which are looking for Dain, who has blown up his own ship in escaping them, causing the deaths of two Dutch seamen. Almayer temporises, and they accuse Almayer of hiding him.

The Dutch officers demand that he produce Dain. Almayer promises to do so, invites them to dinner, and gets drunk. Finally he produces the dead body. But Babalatchi arrives with the true version of events – that Dain escaped and planted his own bracelet and ring on a dead comrade who was killed during the storm.

Nina leaves home to join Dain, and her mother plans to leave Almayer, supported by the money for the dowry. Almayer is awakened from a drunken nightmare by Taminah, who tells him all that has been going on.

Dain waits in hiding, and is joined by Nina. But they are followed by Almayer, who wants his daughter back and feels racially insulted by her liaison with Dain. The two men challenge each other. Nina refuses to obey her father. Finally, Almayer offers to take them away – just as the Dutch troops arrive in pursuit of Dain.

Almayer takes Nina and Dain to an island where they are to be rescued. He parts from his daughter with great bitterness, after which he goes back to Sambir, sets fire to Lingard’s office (and his own home) then declines into opium addition and eventually dies – as news of the birth of Nina’s child is announced.


Biography


Principal characters
Tom Lingard an experienced sea captain with a monopolistic knowledge of river navigation – ‘Rajah Laut’ (King of the Sea)
Kaspar Almayer Lingard’s Dutch business partner, married to his adopted daughter
Mrs Almayer his Philippino wife, who despises him
Nina Almayer’s beautiful mixed-race child
Ali Almayer’s Malaysian assistant
Babalatchi a one-eyed vagabond, handman to Lakamba
Rajah Lakamba trader-cultivator and war-lord
Said Abdulla bin Selim great trader of Sambir
Sayed Reshid his nephew
Sambir trading post town in Borneo
Dain Maroola a rich and handsome prince from Bali
Bulangi a rice trader (who does not appear)
Taminah Bulangi’s slave girl who sells cakes

Almayer's Folly

Almayer’s Folly – first edition 1895


Further reading

Joseph Conrad - reader Amar Acheraiou Joseph Conrad and the Reader, London: Macmillan, 2009.

Joseph Conrad - Poland Muriel Bradbrook, Joseph Conrad: Poland’s English Genius, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941

Joseph Conrad - Dispossession Hillel M. Daleski , Joseph Conrad: The Way of Dispossession, London: Faber, 1977

Joseph Conrad - dialogue Aaron Fogel, Coercion to Speak: Conrad’s Poetics of Dialogue, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1985

Joseph Conrad - novelist Albert J. Guerard, Conrad the Novelist, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1958

Joseph Conrad - language Jeremy Hawthorn, Joseph Conrad: Language and Fictional Self-Consciousness, London: Edward Arnold, 1979

Joseph Conrad - sexuality Jeremy Hawthorn, Sexuality and the Erotic in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad, London: Continuum, 2007.

Joseph Conrad - genre Jakob Lothe, Joseph Conrad: Voice, Sequence, History, Genre, Ohio State University Press, 2008

Joseph Conrad - essays Ross Murfin, Conrad Revisited: Essays for the Eighties, Tuscaloosa, Ala: University of Alabama Press, 1985

Joseph Conrad - life Zdzislaw Najder, Joseph Conrad: A Life, Camden House, 2007.

Joseph Conrad - introduction John G. Peters, The Cambridge Introduction to Joseph Conrad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Joseph Conrad - autobiography Edward Said, Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography, Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1966

Joseph Conrad - companion J.H. Stape, The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996

Joseph Conrad - mariner Peter Villiers, Joseph Conrad: Master Mariner, Seafarer Books, 2006.

Joseph Conrad - his work Cedric Watts, Joseph Conrad: (Writers and their Work), London: Northcote House, 1994.


Other works by Joseph Conrad

The novels of Joseph Conrad - An Outcast of the IslandsAn Outcast of the Islands (1896) was Conrad’s second novel, and acts as a ‘prequel’ to the first, Almayer’s Folly. English sea captain Tom Lingard rescues the corrupt Peter Willems and gives him a second chance by setting him up with a business in a commercial outpost. However, Willems lacks the moral fibre to profit from this act of generosity. He becomes obsessed with a beautiful native girl, deserts his wife and is overwhelmed by local political factions. All this takes place in southern Indonesia against a background of British and Dutch imperialist squabbling for supremacy in the region. Willems is eventually abandoned by his protector, feels desolate and isolated, then has to face the wrath of his wife who comes in search of him.
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon UK
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon US

Joseph Conrad Lord JimLord Jim (1900) is the earliest of Conrad’s big and serious novels, and it explores one of his favourite subjects – cowardice and moral redemption. Jim is a ship’s captain who in youthful ignorance commits the worst offence – abandoning his ship. He spends the remainder of his adult life in shameful obscurity in the South Seas, trying to re-build his confidence and his character. What makes the novel fascinating is not only the tragic but redemptive outcome, but the manner in which it is told. The narrator Marlowe recounts the events in a time scheme which shifts between past and present in an amazingly complex manner. This is one of the features which makes Conrad (born in the nineteenth century) considered one of the fathers of twentieth century modernism.
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon UK
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2012


Joseph Conrad links

Joseph Conrad - tutorials Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Red button Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad - eBooks Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad - further reading Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Joseph Conrad - adaptations Joseph Conrad at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production notes, box office, trivia, and quizzes.

Joseph Conrad - etexts Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

Joseph Conrad - journal The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

Conrad US journal The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Joseph Conrad - concordance Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.


More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales


Filed Under: Joseph Conrad Tagged With: Almayer's Folly, English literature, Joseph Conrad, Literary studies, The novel

An Outcast of the Islands

August 19, 2012 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

An Outcast of the Islands (1896) is Joseph Conrad’s second novel, following closely on his first, Almayer’s Folly which was published the previous year. In fact An Outcast has a close relationship to Almayer, because it deals with some of the same characters and events.

Joseph Conrad - author of An Outcast of the Islands

Joseph Conrad

In fact it is part of what might be called a ‘trilogy in reverse’. An Outcast deals with events that take place in 1872, whereas Almayer’s Folly is set about 1887. An Outcast provides what might in modern media terms be called a ‘back story’ to the first novel. There is also a third volume in the series called The Rescue that deals with events set even earlier in the 1850s – but this was not published until 1920.

Conrad first conceived An Outcast as a short story called Two Vagabonds, but like many of his planned fictions it expanded as soon as he started writing it.


An Outcast of the Islands – plot summary

Peter Willems is a conceited bully who works as a ‘confidential’ clerk for Hudig & Co in Macassar in Malaysia. He has secured the job through the kindness of Tom Lingard, a sea captain who has rescued him as a youth. As the story opens, Willems is embezelling money of Hudig’s to finance a deal he hopes will make him a partner in the company.

An Outcast of the IslandsBut Willems’ illegal doings are revealed, and he is expelled by Hudig, who has only tolerated Willems because he was prepared to marry his daughter. Willems is on the point of complete despair when Lingard sails into port, bails him out financially, and recruits him to work in a commercial outpost at Sambir where he has commercial dominance. However, Willems does not get on with Almayer, the chief at the outpost. He is also unaware of a plot to cause trouble being hatched by Babalatchi, a louche character at the outpost. Willems is sinking back towards despair when he meets a young woman Aissa and is completely overwhelmed by her beauty. He leaves the outpost and goes to live with her and her blind father, Omar.

Five weeks later he returns to Almayer with the warning that plots are being hatched against the trading outpost. He asks Almayer for a loan to set up as an independent trader – a request that Almayer scornfully refuses, correctly surmising that Willems has been expelled from Hudig & Co for embezellement.

Meanwhile Babalatchi conspires with Omar against Willems, plotting to bring in outside help from rich trader Abdulla, who wishes to displace Lingard in the area. Abdulla visits Sambir, and is negatively briefed by Babalatchi Abdulla negotiates with Omar and with Willems (who he knows from Hudig & Co) and leaves with plans to return two days later.

Willems feels trapped and humiliated by his overwhelming desire for Aissa and despairs because he realises they are from completely different cultures. Aissa wish to know what has passed between Willems and Abdulla. She is conscious of her power over him but resents the trouble he brings as an outsider.

Willems has the sole objective of running away with Aissa but she refuses. Whilst they are consoling each other Omar attempts to kill Willems and it seems to Willems as if the daughter might even be helping him.

Almayer gives Captain Lingard a lengthy and somewhat confused account of Abdulla’s attack on the trading post. There is a conflict caused by both Dutch and British flags being raised over the outpost. All Almayer’s gunpowder is thrown into the river and Willems has Almayer sewn into his own hammock, before making off.

Captain Lingard has lost his ship Flash and proposes a new scheme for prospecting upriver for alluvial gold. He has brough Willems’ wife and child to Sambir, still feeling he has a responsibility for them.

Lingard is smarting from the unusually bad state of his affairs (lost ship, lost supremacy on the river). He receives notes of invitation from both Willems and Abdulla. Almayer urges him to act against their rivals.

Lingard arrives in Sambir apparently with the intention of killing Willems. He is met by Babalatchi, who urges him against Willems. Then he is intercepted by Aissa, who is distraught because Willems has become distant from her.

When Lingard confronts Willems, he punches him severely, but thinks he is not worth shooting. Willems wants Lingard to ‘rescue’ him from his plight. But Lingard does the opposite – and condemns him to remain in permanent exile with Aissa. He regards Willems as his ‘mistake’, and his ‘shame’.

Almayer feels a rancorous anxiety at what he sees as Lingard’s tolerant attitude to Willems, and he is apprehensive about his own position. He thinks of killing Willems, but then persuades Mrs Willems to ‘rescue’ her husband. He then sets off with a group of men in a boat, which through his ineptness runs aground.

Willems feels an existential dread at having been abandoned by Lingard. He thinks of himself as deracinated, cut off from all civilized help, and without any human resources to survive the ordeal – even though he has Aissa with him and Lingard is supplying him with food. Eventually his wife Joanna arrives with their son. Willems feels doubly oppressed and thinks of killing both women – but Aissa gets to the gun first and shoots him.


Study resources

An Outcast of the Islands - classics edition An Outcast of the Islands – Oxford World Classics – Amazon UK

An Outcast of the Islands - classics edition An Outcast of the Islands – Oxford World Classics – Amazon US

An Outcast of the Islands - Kindle edition An Outcast of the Islands – Kindle eBook

Red button An Outcast of the Islands – DVD film adaptation at Amazon UK

Red button An Outcast of the Islands – eBook at Project Gutenberg

Red button Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Amazon UK

Red button An Outcast of the Islands – DVD film adaptation at MovieMail

Red button An Outcast of the Islands – film details at IMD

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Red button Routledge Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Red button Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Amazon UK

An Outcast of the Islands


Principal characters
Peter Willems a Dutch confidential clerk at Hudig & Co
Joanna da Souza his wife – a half-caste
Louis Willems his pasty son
Leonard da Souza his brother-in-law
Mr Vinck cashier at Hudig & Co
Tom Lingard an experienced sea captain with a monopolistic knowledge of river navigation
Kaspar Almayer Lingard’s Dutch business partner, married to his adopted daughter
Babalatchi a one-eyed vagabond
Lakamba trader-cultivator and war-lord
Patalolo local leader in Sambir
Omar el Badavi blind Arab chief
Aissa his beautiful daughter
Sambir trading post town in Borneo
Syed Abdulla bin Selim prosperous Muslim trader and distant relative of Omar
Nina Almayer’s child
Ali Almayer’s Malaysian assistant

Biography


Setting

The first part of the novel is set in Macassar, a provincial capital in southern Indonesia. The remainder and majority of the events take place in the fictional town of Sambir, which is losely based on Berau in north-east Borneo (today called Kalimantan) very close to the equator.

The river Pantai on which it is based plays an important part in the story. Captain Lingard has established his prosperous trading business based on his monopoly of navigational skills on the river which is the source of much annoyance to his business rivals.


An Outcast of the Islands

first edition – New York, D. Appleton, 1896


Further reading

Joseph Conrad - critical study Jacques Berthoud, Joseph Conrad: The Major Phase, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Joseph Conrad - critical views Harold Bloom (ed), Joseph Conrad (Bloom’s Modern Critical Views, New Yoprk: Chelsea House Publishers, 2010

Joseph Conrad - modern temper Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan, Joseph Conrad and the Modern Temper, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Joseph Conrad - novelist John Dozier Gordon, Joseph Conrad: The Making of a Novelist, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1940

Joseph Conrad - identity Robert Hampson, Joseph Conrad: Betrayal and Identity, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992

Joseph Conrad - narrative Jeremy Hawthorn, Joseph Conrad: Narrative Technique and Ideological Commitment, London: Edward Arnold, 1990

Joseph Conrad - companion Owen Knowles, The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990

Joseph Conrad - polish Gustav Morf, The Polish Shades and Ghosts of Joseph Conrad, New York: Astra, 1976

Joseph Conrad - biography Jeffery Myers, Joseph Conrad: A Biography, Cooper Square Publishers, 2001.

Joseph Conrad - morals George A. Panichas, Joseph Conrad: His Moral Vision, Mercer University Press, 2005.

Joseph Conrad - genre James Phelan, Joseph Conrad: Voice, Sequence, History, Genre, Ohio State University Press, 2008.

Joseph Conrad - critical issues Allan H. Simmons, Joseph Conrad: (Critical Issues), London: Macmillan, 2006.

Joseph Conrad - several lives John Stape, The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad, Arrow Books, 2008.

Joseph Conrad - nineteenth century Ian Watt, Conrad in the Nineteenth Century, London: Chatto and Windus, 1980


Joseph Conrad - writing table

Joseph Conrad’s writing table


Other works by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad Under Western EyesUnder Western Eyes (1911) is the story of Razumov, a reluctant ‘revolutionary’. He is in fact a coward who is mistaken for a radical hero and cannot escape from the existential trap into which this puts him. This is Conrad’s searing critique of Russian ‘revolutionaries’ who put his own Polish family into exile and jeopardy. The ‘Western Eyes’ are those of an Englishman who reads and comments on Razumov’s journal – thereby creating another chance for Conrad to recount the events from a very complex perspective. Razumov achieves partial redemption as a result of his relationship with a good woman, but the ending, with faint echoes of Dostoyevski, is tragic for all concerned.
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon UK
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon US

Joseph Conrad ChanceChance is the first of Conrad’s novels to achieve a wide commercial success, and one of the few to have a happy ending. It tells the story of Flora de Barral, the abandoned daughter of a bankrupt tycoon, and her long struggle to find happiness and dignity. He takes his techniques of weaving complex narratives to a challenging level here. His narrator Marlow is piecing together the story from a mixture of personal experience and conversations with other characters in the novel. At times it is difficult to remember who is saying what to whom. This is a work for advanced Conrad fans only. Make sure you have read some of the earlier works first, before tackling this one.
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon UK
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon US

The novels of Joseph Conrad - VictoryVictory (1915) is set in the legendary port of Surabaya and in an outpost of the Malayan archipelago. It is the story of Swedish recluse Axel Heyst, who rescues Lena, a young woman from a touring orchestra and runs off to live in remote seclusion, influenced by the pessimistic philosophy of his father. But he is pursued by two lying and scheming English gamblers, who believe he is concealing ill-gotten wealth. They corner him in his retreat, and despite the efforts of Lena to shield Heyst from their plans, there is a tragic confrontation which brings destruction into their island paradise.
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon UK
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2012


Joseph Conrad links

Joseph Conrad - tutorials Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Red button Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad - eBooks Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad - further reading Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Joseph Conrad - adaptations Joseph Conrad at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production notes, box office, trivia, and quizzes.

Joseph Conrad - etexts Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

Joseph Conrad - journal The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

Conrad US journal The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Joseph Conrad - concordance Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.


More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales


Filed Under: Joseph Conrad Tagged With: An Outcast of the Islands, English literature, Joseph Conrad, Literary studies, The novel

Chance – a study guide

June 13, 2010 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

Chance (1914) is unusual in the work of Joseph Conrad in that it was his first big commercial success as a novelist; and it was the first (and last) to have a female protagonist. He actually called it his ‘girl novel’. Conrad is now well ensconced in the Pantheon of great modernists, and his novels Lord Jim, Under Western Eyes, and The Secret Agent are popular classics, along with impressive novellas such as The Secret Sharer and Heart of Darkness which are even more celebrated in terms of the number of critical words written about them. And yet he did not have a popular success in his own lifetime until the publication of Chance in 1914.

Joseph Conrad - portrait

Joseph Conrad – portrait


Chance – critical commentary

The narrative

Chance sees the return of Marlow as a narrator after an absence of a decade or more. Marlow’s task is to assemble the facts of the narrative from a number of different sources, at different temporal levels, of events covering a time span of seventeen years. Some of these sources are people he has never met, and the information that comes from them is so indirect and convoluted, that one often wonders how reliable it can be.

This obliqueness, complexity, and self-referentiality was even more marked in the serial version of the story, which appeared before the novel. The serial included an outer narrator who is a novelist, reflecting on Marlow’s account of events. Conrad cut this out for publication as a novel, and left behind instead an un-named outer narrator who ‘presents’ what Marlow tells him.

In his later novels Conrad pushed the complexities of his narrative strategies more or less to the breaking point of credibility. In Nostromo for instance we are asked at one point to believe that a minute by minute, detailed description of violent events in a revolution is provided by a character writing a letter with a pencil stub in a darkened room.

Similarly in Chance, Marlow is constructing the drama of Flora de Barrall from events which cover a span of seventeen years, related to him largely by other people, some of whom were not even present at the occasions Marlow describes – often in great detail, including what the participants thought and felt. It’s as if Conrad forgets that he has invented some of the characters included in the chain of the narrative.

This weakness also has the effect of blurring the distinction between Marlow and Conrad as the true carrier of the narrative – despite the fact that there is an almost vestigial outer-narrator who is supposed to relaying Marlow’s account to us, and who could have been used to put a critical distance between Conrad and his narrator.

Since Marlow carries almost the entire weight of the narrative, this lack of critical distance has significant ramifications. For instance he repeatedly punctuates his account of events with quasi-philosophic reflections on the nature of women. These are what we would now call patronising at best and downright misogynist at worst. Very occasionally the outer-narrator interrupts him to express surprise – but Marlow’s opinions are never seriously challenged or questioned. Readers are given every reason to believe that Marlow is acting as a mouthpiece for Conrad.

The drama

There is an argument that Conrad reached the highest point of his achievement as a novelist in the period which includes Nostromo (1904), The Secret Agent (1907), and Under Western Eyes (1911).

Yet even the ending of Nostromo shows signs of being rushed. After 350 pages of dramatic conflict and revolution, the protagonist suddenly changes his customary behaviour and is shot, mistaken for somebody else, and that brings the narrative to an end.

Similarly in Chance the major characters are brought together for one final dramatic encounter on board the Ferndale. First the skulduggery which precipitates the climax is terribly melodramatic – a lethal potion slipped into a drink.

This event is seen by one character, who is watching a second, who is spying on a third – a sequence of improbabilities which might be straight out of a Thomas Hardy novel. And then the villain of the piece suddenly acts quite out of character and swallows his own poison.

And once all the problems have been dealt with, the hero of the novel is removed from the picture by a sudden accident – leaving the stage clear for a very unconvincing happy ending in which the two youngest people in the novel (Flora and Powell) are romantically linked.

The main problem with Chance is that unlike Heart of Darkness, The Secret Agent, and Under Western Eyes, it is not about anything very important. A financial dealer goes bankrupt, and his young daughter is ill-treated by the people who are supposed to be looking after her. She enters a curiously ‘chivalric’ marriage, of which her father disapproves. There is tension between her father and her husband; but when both of them die, she is free to face the prospect of life with a man her own age.

The central drama of the novel is supposed to revolve around the character of Flora – yet she never really comes to life. She is the passive victim throughout – adored by her husband and possessively regarded by her father who shows no signs of paternal affection for her. She marries Anthony in a daydream and appears to be entering into a similar relationship with Powell at the end of the novel. We do not see events from her point of view, and she expresses few emotions other than a feeling worthlessness in her low moments, and a saint-like patience with her father as he rants about her choice of husband.


Chance – study resources

Chance Chance – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon UK

Chance Chance – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon US

Chancer Chance – annotated Kindle eBook edition

Chance Chance – eBook versions at Project Gutenberg

Chance Chance – Online Literature

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Red button Routledge Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Red button Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Amazon UK

Pointer Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Amazon UK

Pointer The Complete Critical Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Pointer Notes on Life and Letters – Amazon UK

Pointer Joseph Conrad – biographical notes

Pointer Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Pointer Joseph Conrad at Mantex – tutorials, web links, study resources

Chance


Chance – plot summary

The celebrated financier de Barrall is a widow with a young daughter called Flora. She is looked after by a governess in Brighton whilst her father concentrates on expanding his business empire. He makes a large fortune by persuading people to invest, but is then disgraced and sent to jail when his business collapses. When the prospect of getting hold of some of de Barrall’s money disappears, the governess (and her shady accomplice) abandon Flora, and she is taken in by lower-class relatives who neglect her. She escapes from them and is then looked after by Mr and Mrs Fynes, where she is rescued by a momentary temptation to commit suicide by Marlow, the narrator of the the story.

Joseph Conrad ChanceShe also meets Captain Anthony, Mrs Fynes’ brother who falls in love with her and persuades her to marry him. Because of her life experiences, she feels unloved and worthless, but agrees to the marriage, which Anthony proposes will be ‘chivalric’ on his part. That is, recognising that she is not in love with him, he will make no demands on her (including sexual) but will defend her for the rest of her life.

When her father is eventually released from prison, a broken man, Anthony makes provision for them both on board his ship, the Ferndale. Relations on board however become very strained. Franklin, the chief mate, is passionately attached to Captain Anthony and is jealous of his relationship with Flora. In addition, de Barrall cannot stand the sight of Anthony and regards the fact that Flora has married him as an act of betrayal on her part.

The climax of the story occurs when de Barrall tries to poison Anthony, but is overseen by Powell, the second mate. When de Barrall is exposed and realises that the game is up, he takes the poison himself and dies.

Anthony and Flora are free to continue their mariage blanc for six years until the Ferndale is involved in a collision at sea and Anthony goes down with the ship as the last man on board. Flora retires to the countryside and as the novel ends she is being encouraged by Marlow to entertain the attentions of Powell, with whose ‘chance’ employment on the Ferndale the novel began.


Biography


Principal characters
Narrator The un-named outer narrator who presents Marlow’s account of events
Marlow An experienced sea captain, the principal narrator of events
Mr Powell A shipping office employer, who gives Charles Powell his first chance of employment
Charles Powell A young, recently qualified naval officer
Roderick Anthony The captain of the Ferndale
Carleon Anthony Captain Anthony’s father, a romantic poet
John Fyne A civil servant, Anthony’s brother-in-law
Zoe Fyne Captain Anthony’s sister, a radical feminist
Eliza Governess to Flora in Brighton
Charley The governess’s young ‘nephew’ and accomplice
Mr de Barrall A famous financier who becomes bankrupt and goes to jail
Flora Barrall Barrall’s young daughter
No name de Barrall’s lower-class relatives who ‘abduct’ Flora
Franklin First mate on the Ferndale who is passionately attached to Captain Anthony
Mr Brown Steward on the Ferndale
Jane Brown The steward’s wife who is companion to Flora

Heart of Darkness - manuscript page

Manuscript page from Heart of Darkness


The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad offers a series of essays by leading Conrad scholars aimed at both students and the general reader. There’s a chronology and overview of Conrad’s life, then chapters that explore significant issues in his major writings, and deal in depth with individual works. These are followed by discussions of the special nature of Conrad’s narrative techniques, his complex relationships with late-Victorian imperialism and with literary Modernism, and his influence on other writers and artists. Each essay provides guidance to further reading, and a concluding chapter surveys the body of Conrad criticism.


Joseph Conrad's writing table

Joseph Conrad’s writing table


Further reading

Red button Amar Acheraiou Joseph Conrad and the Reader, London: Macmillan, 2009.

Red button Jacques Berthoud, Joseph Conrad: The Major Phase, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Red button Muriel Bradbrook, Joseph Conrad: Poland’s English Genius, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941

Red button Harold Bloom (ed), Joseph Conrad (Bloom’s Modern Critical Views, New Yoprk: Chelsea House Publishers, 2010

Red button Hillel M. Daleski , Joseph Conrad: The Way of Dispossession, London: Faber, 1977

Red button Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan, Joseph Conrad and the Modern Temper, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Red button Aaron Fogel, Coercion to Speak: Conrad’s Poetics of Dialogue, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1985

Red button John Dozier Gordon, Joseph Conrad: The Making of a Novelist, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1940

Red button Albert J. Guerard, Conrad the Novelist, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1958

Red button Robert Hampson, Joseph Conrad: Betrayal and Identity, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992

Red button Jeremy Hawthorn, Joseph Conrad: Language and Fictional Self-Consciousness, London: Edward Arnold, 1979

Red button Jeremy Hawthorn, Joseph Conrad: Narrative Technique and Ideological Commitment, London: Edward Arnold, 1990

Red button Jeremy Hawthorn, Sexuality and the Erotic in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad, London: Continuum, 2007.

Red button Owen Knowles, The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990

Red button Jakob Lothe, Joseph Conrad: Voice, Sequence, History, Genre, Ohio State University Press, 2008

Red button Gustav Morf, The Polish Shades and Ghosts of Joseph Conrad, New York: Astra, 1976

Red button Ross Murfin, Conrad Revisited: Essays for the Eighties, Tuscaloosa, Ala: University of Alabama Press, 1985

Red button Jeffery Myers, Joseph Conrad: A Biography, Cooper Square Publishers, 2001.

Red button Zdzislaw Najder, Joseph Conrad: A Life, Camden House, 2007.

Red button George A. Panichas, Joseph Conrad: His Moral Vision, Mercer University Press, 2005.

Red button John G. Peters, The Cambridge Introduction to Joseph Conrad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Red button James Phelan, Joseph Conrad: Voice, Sequence, History, Genre, Ohio State University Press, 2008.

Red button Edward Said, Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography, Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1966

Red button Allan H. Simmons, Joseph Conrad: (Critical Issues), London: Macmillan, 2006.

Red button J.H. Stape, The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996

Red button John Stape, The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad, Arrow Books, 2008.

Red button Peter Villiers, Joseph Conrad: Master Mariner, Seafarer Books, 2006.

Red button Ian Watt, Conrad in the Nineteenth Century, London: Chatto and Windus, 1980

Red button Cedric Watts, Joseph Conrad: (Writers and their Work), London: Northcote House, 1994.


Other novels by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad The Secret AgentThe Secret Agent (1907) is a short novel and a masterpiece of sustained irony. It is based on the real incident of a bomb attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1888 and features a cast of wonderfully grotesque characters: Verloc the lazy double agent, Inspector Heat of Scotland Yard, and the Professor – an anarchist who wanders through the novel with bombs strapped round his waist and the detonator in his hand. The English government and police are subject to sustained criticism, and the novel bristles with some wonderfully orchestrated effects of dramatic irony – all set in the murky atmosphere of Victorian London. Here Conrad prefigures all the ambiguities which surround two-faced international relations, duplicitous State realpolitik, and terrorist outrage which still beset us more than a hundred years later.
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon UK
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon US

Joseph Conrad Under Western EyesUnder Western Eyes (1911) is the story of Razumov, a reluctant ‘revolutionary’. He is in fact a coward who is mistaken for a radical hero and cannot escape from the existential trap into which this puts him. This is Conrad’s searing critique of Russian ‘revolutionaries’ who put his own Polish family into exile and jeopardy. The ‘Western Eyes’ are those of an Englishman who reads and comments on Razumov’s journal – thereby creating another chance for Conrad to recount the events from a very complex perspective. Razumov achieves partial redemption as a result of his relationship with a good woman, but the ending, with faint echoes of Dostoyevski, is tragic for all concerned.
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon UK
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2010


Joseph Conrad web links

Joseph Conrad - tutorials Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Red button Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad - eBooks Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad - further reading Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Joseph Conrad - adaptations Joseph Conrad at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production notes, box office, trivia, and quizzes.

Joseph Conrad - etexts Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

Joseph Conrad - journal The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

Conrad US journal The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Joseph Conrad - concordance Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.


More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales


Filed Under: Joseph Conrad Tagged With: Chance, English literature, Joseph Conrad, Modernism, study guide, The novel

Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

July 18, 2009 by Roy Johnson

a guide to Conrad’s classic critique of imperialism

Joseph Conrad retired from the sea and started writing romantic adventure stories. His first works were popular but light, but then in 1899 he produced a novella which struck such dark tones and offered a reading of European imperialism so profound, that it still strikes deep resonances today. Heart of Darkness, which is aimed at students and general readers who might wish to extend their understanding of Conrad and what he has to offer. The first chapter puts Conrad into historical, intellectual, cultural, and literary context. He was of the nineteenth century, but he signalled many of the concerns and even the literary techniques of twentieth century modernism. And of course, even though he is now regarded as a pillar stone of English Literature, he was Polish.

Conrad's Heart of DarknessThis is a study guide to that work, Allan Simmons then takes you straight into an analysis of the story via his consideration of Conrad’s use of English (which was his third language) his narrator Marlow, and his use of the novella as a literary form. A level students and undergraduates will find his analyses of the details thought-provoking – and the process should lead them towards the complexities of investigation they might be making on their own behalf. At the same time, anyone teaching the novella will find his approach useful.

The central part of the book is a reading of the novella, tracing the narrator Marlow’s journey from Europe, into the ‘dark continent’, and back out again – an ambiguously changed man. Simmons traces all the subtle allusions, symbols, and thematic parallels in the narrative.

Despite the ultimate pointlessness of comparing fiction with what might have been its real life inspiration, I think a map of the Congo would have been useful here.

In the two final chapters Simmons traces Conrad’s reputation as a writer from the publication of Heart of Darkness to the present, then he looks at the adaptations – nearly ninety films and even a piano concerto.

There is still interpretive work to be done on many aspects of Conrad – not least his attitude to women – but studies such as this help to provide the means whereby this work will be done.

© Roy Johnson 2007

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US


Allan Simmons, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, London: Continuum, 2007, pp.132, ISBN: 0826489346


More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales


Filed Under: Joseph Conrad Tagged With: 20C Literature, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, Literary studies, Study guides, The Novella

Critical Guide to Joseph Conrad

July 9, 2009 by Roy Johnson

biography, guidance notes, and literary criticism

This comes from a new series by Routledge which offers comprehensive but single-volume introductions to major English writers. They are aimed at students of literature, but are accessible to general readers who might like to deepen their literary understanding. The approach taken could not be more straightforward. Part one of the Critical Guide to Joseph Conrad is a potted biography, placing Conrad’s life and work in its socio-historical context. Thus we get his early years in Poland, his career as a seaman, his influences and ambitions, and his (relatively slow) rise to fame as a novelist. One of the interesting features of Conrad’s development as a writer is that his early novels were largely adult versions of boy’s adventure stories.

The Complete Critical Guide to Joseph ConradHowever, as his work became richer he tackled themes of intense political complexity. Read Heart of Darkness today and you would swear it had been written quite recently. Part two provides a synoptic view of his stories and novels. The works are described in outline, and then their main themes illuminated. This is followed by pointers towards the main critical writings on these texts and issues. I must say that reading through the synopses of some of his lesser known works made me want to go back to them again.

Part three deals with criticism of Conrad’s work. This is presented in chronological order – from contemporaries such as Richard Curle and his collaborator Ford Madox Ford, via early champions such as F.R. Leavis and Albert Guerard, to critics of the present day, with the focus on colonial and post-colonial criticism.

The book ends with a chronology of his life, a commendably thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist Conrad journals.

This is an excellent starting point for students who are new to Conrad’s work – and a refresher course for those who would like to keep up to date with criticism.

© Roy Johnson 2006

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US


Tim Middleton, The Complete Critical Guide to Joseph Conrad, London: Routledge, 2006, pp.201, ISBN 0415268524


More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales


Filed Under: Joseph Conrad Tagged With: English literature, Joseph Conrad, Literary studies, Modernism, The Complete Critical Guide to Joseph Conrad

Falk: A Reminiscence

November 23, 2011 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

Falk (1903) is not one of Joseph Conrad’s better-known stories, yet it deserves to be. It is just as successful as Heart of Darkness in exploring powerful and extreme situations. It was first published in the collection Typhoon and Other Tales (1903) and is the only one of Conrad’s stories which did not first appear serialized in magazine publication. This was because the editor objected to the fact that the very powerfully evoked central female character never speaks.

Joseph Conrad - portrait

Joseph Conrad


Falk – critical commentary

Inter-textuality

Falk (1903) is composed of many elements Conrad used in his other novels and novellas. The story begins with a group of mariners dining in a small river-hostelry in the Thames estuary discussing seafaring matters – a situation he had already used in Heart of Darkness, which was written the year before. He even uses a similar comparison of the narrative present with a distant past – not that of the Roman invasion, but of primeval man telling tales of his experience.

An unnamed outer-narrator sets the scene, and then the story is taken up by a second and equally unnamed inner-narrator – a type rather like Marlow, the inner-narrator of Heart of Darkness and other Conrad tales. He is recounting events which took place when he was a younger man.

The young man is taking up his first assignment as a captain – a plot device Conrad had used in Heart of Darkness and was to use again in both The Shadow-Line and The Secret Sharer. The location of events is not specified, but it corresponds in many details to Bangkok, which appears in the two later novellas. He is also taking over from a rather dubious previous captain who has died, and his ship is held up in port with a sickly crew.

Characters from other Conrad tales appear in the story: Schomberg the gossipy Alsatian hotel owner who appears in Lord Jim (1900) and Victory (1915); Gambril, the elderly sailor who also appears in The Shadow-Line. And of course Falk’s dreadful experiences drifting powerless on a doomed ship towards the South Pole carries unmistakable echoes of The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner and The Flying Dutchman legend.

A Darwinian reading

It’s possible to argue that Falk is concerned with the elemental forces which man needs in order to survive. In the animal world there are three basic instincts which combine to form a will to prevail – that results in ‘the survival of the fittest’. These are the hunt for food, the urge to procreate, and the fight for territory.

Falk himself embodies all of these forces to a marked degree. He fights to stay alive, and he is even prepared to confront one of society’s most sacred taboos – he will kill and eat human flesh in order to endure and prevail.

His yearning for Hermann’s niece is a powerful, all-consuming physical passion. Despite all his sufferings on board the Borgmester Dahl, his unfulfilled desire for her hurts him more deeply. It is a more painful feeling to endure. ‘This is worse pain. This is more terrible’ he exclaims. It’s interesting to note that when Falk tows away Hermann’s ship by force, the narrator observes ‘I could not believe that a simple towing operation could suggest so plainly the idea of abduction, of rape. Falk was simply running off with the Diana‘.

He gets what he yearns for in the end. And it’s interesting to note that he also asserts his dominance in terms of territory. With his tug boat on the river he has a monopoly over navigation, and can charge whatever he wishes for piloting ships to the open sea. He does a similar thing in the struggle for survival on the stricken Borgmester Dahl by siezing control of the last firearm on board. The young captain reflects ‘He was a born monopolist’.

Falk endures the most extreme conditions imaginable – hunger, deprivation, and the threat of death. As the Borgmester Dahl drifts aimlessly towards the south pole, he inhabits a microcosm of a Hobbesian world. His life is nasty, brutish, and is likely to be short. And he is surrounded by cowards and incompetents. Yet he wills himself to endure; he takes control of the ship; and he is prepared to fight back against man’s inhumanity to man when the carpenter attacks him. He triumphs and survives. ‘They all died … But I would not die … Only the best man would survive. It was a great, terrible, and cruel misfortune.’

The food and eating leitmotif

Imagery of food and eating occur repeatedly throughout the story. The narrative begins with men of the sea ‘dining in a small river-hostelry. And they are compared with their primitive counterparts telling ‘tales of hunger and hunt – and of women perhaps!’amongst gnawed bones.

The young captain dines on chops at Schomberg’s table d’hote and listens (whilst the hotelier eats ‘furiously’) to his complaints against Falk. These complaints are based of food an cooking. Falk refuses to dine at Schomberg’s hotel because he is a vegetarian. He has also stolen Schomberg’s native cook.

Schomberg regards Falk as unnatural because he does not eat meat: ‘A white man should eat like a white man … Ought to eat meat, must eat meat.’ But Falk even bans meat-eating from his own ship, and pays his crew a supplements to their wages for the inconvenience. The young captain reflects ruefully on the state of affairs:

I was engaged just then in eating despondently a piece of stale Dutch cheese, being too much crushed to care what I swallowed myself, let alone bothering my head about Falk’s ideas of gastronomy. I could expect from their study no clue to his conduct in matters of business, which seemed to me totally unrestrained by morality or even by the commonest sort of decency.

This is a wonderful example of the sort of ironic prolepses Conrad embeds in his text. Falk’s ideas of gastronomy have been formed by exactly the same extreme experiences which have influenced his moral attitudes to business and society. He has seen and endured the Worst, and he has survived in the most primitive struggle for existence. And his shock at finding himself forced to eat a fellow human being leads to his choice of vegetarianism. There is therefore a direct link between his gastronomy and his morality. But the young captain does not know that at this point of the narrative.

Falk’s final descent into cannibalism is reinforced by understatement. He tells his bride-to-be and father-in-law: “I have eaten man”.

Story or novella?

There is no clear dividing line between a long story and a novella – in terms of length. At approximately 20,000 words it would be possible to argue that Falk is a long story: The first part deals with a young captain and his experiences on shore in Bangkok: the second part recounts the shocking details of Falk’s experiences on board the Borgmester Dahl.

But the fundamental issues at stake in this story are so profound (the fight for survival – see above) and the concentrated imagery with which the story is articulated is so dense, that this narrative has all the qualities of a novella. It focuses on eating to stay alive, reproducing to continue the human race, and establishing dominance of a territorial space.

It’s true that there are a greater number of named characters in the story than normally appear in a novella – not all of them with important parts to play in the plot. But the focus of attention is largely on Falk, Hermann, and the narrator. Quite astonishingly, Hermann’s niece is also a vital part of the story – even though she is never named, she never speaks, and she does nothing except represent animal magnetism in its most vital form.


Falk – study resources

Falk Falk – Oxford World Classics – Amazon UK

Falk Falk – Oxford World Classics – Amazon US

Falk Falk – Kindle eBook (annotated)

Falk Falk – Tredition paperback – Amazon UK

Falk Falk – Tredition paperback – Amazon US

Falk Falk – eBook at Project Gutenberg

Red button Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Amazon UK

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Red button Routledge Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Red button Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Amazon UK

Red button Notes on Life and Letters – Amazon UK

Red button Joseph Conrad – biographical notes

Falk


Falk – plot summary

A young mariner (‘not yet thirty’) takes charge of a ship in the far east (Bangkok) when the previous captain dies. The crew are sickly and unfriendly, the ship has no provisions, and there are delays in getting under way. He befriends Hermann, the captain of the Diana, a German ship which is moored nearby. Hermann lives on board with his wife, his four children, and his niece – who is a simple but physically attractive young woman. Hermann is planning to sell his ship and go back to Germany to retire. Also passing time with this family is Falk, the captain of a tug with a monopoly of navigation on the river leading out to the coast.

Joseph Conrad FalkFalk is a remote, taciturn, and rather forbidding figure who is not popular with the local officials and traders. When the young captain’s and Hermann’s vessels are ready to depart, the young captain is annoyed to discover that Falk takes the Diana out first, damaging Hermann’s ship in the process. The captain tries to hire the one possible alternative navigator, but discovers that Falk has bought him off.

It transpires that Falk has taken this precipitate action because he is consumed with a passionate desire for Hermann’s voluptuous niece, and thinks the young captain is a rival. The captain confronts Falk, reassuring him that he has no designs on the girl. Falk asks for his diplomatic assistance in re-establishing good relations with Hermann, so that he can propose to the niece.

The young captain opens negotiations, and Hermann very reluctantly allows Falk to plead his case. But Falk explains that there is one thing the niece should know about him if she is to accept his offer of marriage – the fact that he had once eaten human flesh.

This sends Hermann into a explosion of outraged sensibility. The captain assumes that Falk has been involved in a shipwreck, but Falk explains to him the story of his experiences on a ship which is damaged beyond repair by storms at sea. It drifts helplessly into the Antarctic Ocean, and runs out of provisions. The crew and the captain are feckless, and start to die off or jump overboard. The ship’s carpenter tries to kill Falk, but Falk kills him instead, whereupon he and the remaining crew eat the man before eventually being rescued.

The young captain speaks on Falk’s behalf to Hermann, who eventually consents to the match – motivated partly by saving the cost of an extra cabin (for the niece) on the journey back to Bremen. When the young captain returns to the port five years later, Mr and Mrs Falk are no longer there.


Principal characters
— the unnamed outer narrator
— the unnamed inner-narrator
Hermann a German ship master
Mrs Hermann his wife
— his physically attractive niece
Lena, Gustav, Carl, Nicholas the Hermann children
Falk a Danish or Norwegian tugboat captain
Schomberg an Alsatian hotel-keeper
Mrs Schomberg his grinning wife
Mr Siegers principal in shipping office
Johnson former captain, now a drunk who has gone native
Gambril an elderly seaman

Biography


The Cambridge Companion to Joseph ConradThe Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad offers a series of essays by leading Conrad scholars aimed at both students and the general reader. There’s a chronology and overview of Conrad’s life, then chapters that explore significant issues in his major writings, and deal in depth with individual works. These are followed by discussions of the special nature of Conrad’s narrative techniques, his complex relationships with late-Victorian imperialism and with literary Modernism, and his influence on other writers and artists. Each essay provides guidance to further reading, and a concluding chapter surveys the body of Conrad criticism.


Joseph Conrad - writing table

Joseph Conrad’s writing table


Further reading

Red button Amar Acheraiou Joseph Conrad and the Reader, London: Macmillan, 2009.

Red button Jacques Berthoud, Joseph Conrad: The Major Phase, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Red button Muriel Bradbrook, Joseph Conrad: Poland’s English Genius, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941

Red button Harold Bloom (ed), Joseph Conrad (Bloom’s Modern Critical Views, New Yoprk: Chelsea House Publishers, 2010

Red button Hillel M. Daleski , Joseph Conrad: The Way of Dispossession, London: Faber, 1977

Red button Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan, Joseph Conrad and the Modern Temper, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Red button Aaron Fogel, Coercion to Speak: Conrad’s Poetics of Dialogue, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1985

Red button John Dozier Gordon, Joseph Conrad: The Making of a Novelist, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1940

Red button Albert J. Guerard, Conrad the Novelist, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1958

Red button Robert Hampson, Joseph Conrad: Betrayal and Identity, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992

Red button Jeremy Hawthorn, Joseph Conrad: Language and Fictional Self-Consciousness, London: Edward Arnold, 1979

Red button Jeremy Hawthorn, Joseph Conrad: Narrative Technique and Ideological Commitment, London: Edward Arnold, 1990

Red button Jeremy Hawthorn, Sexuality and the Erotic in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad, London: Continuum, 2007.

Red button Owen Knowles, The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990

Red button Jakob Lothe, Joseph Conrad: Voice, Sequence, History, Genre, Ohio State University Press, 2008

Red button Gustav Morf, The Polish Shades and Ghosts of Joseph Conrad, New York: Astra, 1976

Red button Ross Murfin, Conrad Revisited: Essays for the Eighties, Tuscaloosa, Ala: University of Alabama Press, 1985

Red button Jeffery Myers, Joseph Conrad: A Biography, Cooper Square Publishers, 2001.

Red button Zdzislaw Najder, Joseph Conrad: A Life, Camden House, 2007.

Red button George A. Panichas, Joseph Conrad: His Moral Vision, Mercer University Press, 2005.

Red button John G. Peters, The Cambridge Introduction to Joseph Conrad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Red button James Phelan, Joseph Conrad: Voice, Sequence, History, Genre, Ohio State University Press, 2008.

Red button Edward Said, Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography, Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1966

Red button Allan H. Simmons, Joseph Conrad: (Critical Issues), London: Macmillan, 2006.

Red button J.H. Stape, The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996

Red button John Stape, The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad, Arrow Books, 2008.

Red button Peter Villiers, Joseph Conrad: Master Mariner, Seafarer Books, 2006.

Red button Ian Watt, Conrad in the Nineteenth Century, London: Chatto and Windus, 1980

Red button Cedric Watts, Joseph Conrad: (Writers and their Work), London: Northcote House, 1994.


Joseph Conrad’s writing

Joseph Conrad - manuscript page

Manuscript page from Heart of Darkness


Other work by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad NostromoNostromo (1904) is Conrad’s ‘big’ political novel – into which he packs all of his major subjects and themes. It is set in the imaginary Latin-American country of Costaguana – and features a stolen hoard of silver, desperate acts of courage, characters trembling on the brink of moral panic. The political background encompasses nationalist revolution and the Imperialism of foreign intervention. Silver is the pivot of the whole story – revealing the courage of some and the corruption and destruction of others. Conrad’s narration is as usual complex and oblique. He begins half way through the events of the revolution, and proceeds by way of flashbacks and glimpses into the future.
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon UK
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon US

Joseph Conrad The Secret AgentThe Secret Agent (1907) is a short novel and a masterpiece of sustained irony. It is based on the real incident of a bomb attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1888 and features a cast of wonderfully grotesque characters: Verloc the lazy double agent, Inspector Heat of Scotland Yard, and the Professor – an anarchist who wanders through the novel with bombs strapped round his waist and the detonator in his hand. The English government and police are subject to sustained criticism, and the novel bristles with some wonderfully orchestrated effects of dramatic irony – all set in the murky atmosphere of Victorian London. Here Conrad prefigures all the ambiguities which surround two-faced international relations, duplicitous State realpolitik, and terrorist outrage which still beset us more than a hundred years later.
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon UK
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2012


Joseph Conrad web links

Joseph Conrad - tutorials Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Red button Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad - eBooks Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad - further reading Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Joseph Conrad - adaptations Joseph Conrad at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production notes, box office, trivia, and quizzes.

Joseph Conrad - etexts Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

Joseph Conrad - journal The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

Conrad US journal The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Joseph Conrad - concordance Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.


More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales


Filed Under: Conrad - Tales, Joseph Conrad, The Novella Tagged With: English literature, Falk, Joseph Conrad, Literary studies, The Novella

Heart of Darkness

February 13, 2010 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, characters, resources, videos, writing

Heart of Darkness (1902) is a tightly controlled novella which has assumed classic status as an account of the process of Imperialism. It documents the search for a mysterious Kurtz, who has ‘gone too far’ in his exploitation of Africans in the ivory trade. The reader is plunged deeper and deeper into the ‘horrors’ of what happened when Europeans invaded the continent. This might well go down in literary history as Conrad’s finest and most insightful achievement, and it is based on his own experiences as a sea captain.

Joseph Conrad - portrait

Joseph Conrad


Heart of Darkness – plot summary

The story opens with five men on a boat on the river Thames. Marlow begins telling a story of a job he took as captain of a steamship in Africa. He begins by ruminating on how Britain’s image among Ancient Roman officials must have been similar to Africa’s image among nineteenth century British officials. He describes how his aunt secured the job for him. When he arrives in Africa, he encounters many men he dislikes as they strike him as untrustworthy. They speak of a man named Kurtz, who has a reputation as a rogue ivory collector, but who is “essentially a great musician,” a journalist, a skilled painter and “a universal genius.”

Joseph Conrad Heart of DarknessMarlow arrives at the Central Station run by the general manager, an unwholesome conspiratorial character. He finds that his steamship has been sunk and spends several months waiting for parts to repair it. Kurtz is rumored to be ill, making the delays in repairing the ship all the more costly. Marlow eventually gets the parts and he and the manager set out with a few agents and a crew of cannibals on a long, difficult voyage up river. The dense jungle and oppressive silence make everyone aboard a little jumpy and the occasional glimpse of a native village or the sound of drums works the voyagers into a frenzy.

Marlow and his crew come across a hut with stacked firewood together with a note saying that the wood is for them but that they should approach cautiously. Shortly after the steamer has taken on the firewood it is surrounded by a dense fog. When the fog clears, the ship is attacked by an unseen band of natives, who fire arrows from the safety of the forest. A Russian trader who meets them as they come ashore, assures them that everything is fine and informs them that he is the one who left the wood. Kurtz has established himself as a god with the natives and has gone on brutal raids in the surrounding territory in search of ivory.

Congo mapMarlow and his crew take the ailing Kurtz aboard their ship and depart. Kurtz is lodged in Marlow’s pilothouse and Marlow begins to see that Kurtz is every bit as grandiose as previously described. During this time, Kurtz gives Marlow a collection of papers and a photograph for safekeeping. Both had witnessed the Manager going through Kurtz’s belongings. The photograph is of a beautiful woman whom Marlow assumes is Kurtz’s love interest.

One night Marlow happens upon Kurtz, obviously near death. As Marlow comes closer with a candle, Kurtz seems to experience a moment of clarity and speaks his last words: “The horror! The horror!” Marlow believes this to be Kurtz’s reflection on the events of his life. Marlow does not inform the Manager or any of the other voyagers of Kurtz’s death; the news is instead broken by the Manager’s child-servant.

Marlow later returns to his home city and is confronted by many people seeking things and ideas of Kurtz. Marlow eventually sees Kurtz’s fiancée about a year later; she is still in mourning. She asks Marlow about Kurtz’s death and Marlow informs her that his last words were her name — rather than, as really happened, “The horror! The horror!”

The story’s conclusion returns to the boat on the Thames and mentions how it seems as though the boat is drifting into the heart of the darkness.


Study resources

Red button Heart of Darkness – Oxford University Press – Amazon UK

Red button Heart of Darkness – Oxford University Press – Amazon US

Red button Heart of Darkness – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

Red button Heart of Darkness – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

Red button Heart of Darkness – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon UK

Red button Heart of Darkness – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon US

Red button Heart of Darkness – eBook version at Project Gutenberg – [FREE]

Red button Heart of Darkness – York Notes (Advanced) – Amazon UK

Red button Heart of Darkness – audioBook version (unabridged) – Amazon UK

Red button Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: A Casebook – Amazon UK

Red button Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ – criticism (Bloomsbury) – Amazon UK

Red button Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ – criticism (Chelsea) – Amazon UK

Red button Joseph Conrad: ‘Heart of Darkness’ – criticism (Icon) – Amazon UK

Red button Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ – criticism (Routledge) – Amz UK

Red button Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ – criticism (Penguin) – Amazon UK

Red button An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’

Red button Heart of Darkness – audioBook at LibriVox

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Red button Routledge Guide to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Red button Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Amazon UK

Red button Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Red button Joseph Conrad at Mantex – tutorials, web links, study resources

Heart of Darkness


Heart of Darkness – film adaptation

Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of Heart of Darkness transforms events from Europe’s imperialist exploitation of the the Belgian Congo to America’s war in Vietnam in the 1960s. It remains amazingly faithful to the original, even whilst translating the settings and events into the fully mechanised assault of the world’s most powerful industrial nation against a country of poor farmers and peasants. Marlow becomes Captain Willard, who is sent on a mission to terminate (‘with extreme prejudice’) the command of rogue Major Kurtz, who has gone over the border into Cambodia with a band of followers.

Francis Ford Coppola adaptation 1979

Red button See reviews of the film at the Internet Movie Database


Principal characters
I an unnamed outer narrator who relays Marlow’s story
Marlow a ferry-boat captain, the principal character and narrator of events
Kurtz chief of the Inner Station of Belgian ivory traders
General manager chief of the Outer Station
Chief accountant impeccably dressed functionary
Pilgrims greedy agents of the Outer Station
Cannibals natives hired as steamer crew
Russian trader a disciple of Kurtz with patched clothes
Helmsman native sailor who is killed in the attack on the boat
Kurtz’s African mistress powerful and mysterious woman who never speaks
Kurtz’s ‘intended’ his devoted fiancee in Bussels
Aunt relative who secures Marlow his job

Biography


The Cambridge Companion to Joseph ConradThe Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad offers a series of essays by leading Conrad scholars aimed at both students and the general reader. There’s a chronology and overview of Conrad’s life, then chapters that explore significant issues in his major writings, and deal in depth with individual works. These are followed by discussions of the special nature of Conrad’s narrative techniques, his complex relationships with late-Victorian imperialism and with literary Modernism, and his influence on other writers and artists. Each essay provides guidance to further reading, and a concluding chapter surveys the body of Conrad criticism.

Buy the book at Amazon UK
Buy the book at Amazon US


Joseph Conrad - manuscript page

Manuscript page from Heart of Darkness


Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a good introduction to Conrad and criticism of the text. It includes a potted biography, an outline of the novella, and pointers towards the main critical writings – from the early comments by his contemporaries to critics of the present day. The latter half of the book is given over to five extended critical readings of the text. These represent what are currently perceived as major schools of literary criticism – neo-Marxist, historicism, feminism, deconstructionist, and narratological.

Buy the book at Amazon UK
Buy the book at Amazon US


Further reading

Red button Amar Acheraiou Joseph Conrad and the Reader, London: Macmillan, 2009.

Red button Jacques Berthoud, Joseph Conrad: The Major Phase, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Red button Muriel Bradbrook, Joseph Conrad: Poland’s English Genius, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941

Red button Harold Bloom (ed), Joseph Conrad (Bloom’s Modern Critical Views, New Yoprk: Chelsea House Publishers, 2010

Red button Hillel M. Daleski , Joseph Conrad: The Way of Dispossession, London: Faber, 1977

Red button Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan, Joseph Conrad and the Modern Temper, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Red button Aaron Fogel, Coercion to Speak: Conrad’s Poetics of Dialogue, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1985

Red button John Dozier Gordon, Joseph Conrad: The Making of a Novelist, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1940

Red button Albert J. Guerard, Conrad the Novelist, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1958

Red button Robert Hampson, Joseph Conrad: Betrayal and Identity, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992

Red button Jeremy Hawthorn, Joseph Conrad: Language and Fictional Self-Consciousness, London: Edward Arnold, 1979

Red button Jeremy Hawthorn, Joseph Conrad: Narrative Technique and Ideological Commitment, London: Edward Arnold, 1990

Red button Jeremy Hawthorn, Sexuality and the Erotic in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad, London: Continuum, 2007.

Red button Owen Knowles, The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990

Red button Jakob Lothe, Joseph Conrad: Voice, Sequence, History, Genre, Ohio State University Press, 2008

Red button Gustav Morf, The Polish Shades and Ghosts of Joseph Conrad, New York: Astra, 1976

Red button Ross Murfin, Conrad Revisited: Essays for the Eighties, Tuscaloosa, Ala: University of Alabama Press, 1985

Red button Jeffery Myers, Joseph Conrad: A Biography, Cooper Square Publishers, 2001.

Red button Zdzislaw Najder, Joseph Conrad: A Life, Camden House, 2007.

Red button George A. Panichas, Joseph Conrad: His Moral Vision, Mercer University Press, 2005.

Red button John G. Peters, The Cambridge Introduction to Joseph Conrad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Red button James Phelan, Joseph Conrad: Voice, Sequence, History, Genre, Ohio State University Press, 2008.

Red button Edward Said, Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography, Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1966

Red button Allan H. Simmons, Joseph Conrad: (Critical Issues), London: Macmillan, 2006.

Red button J.H. Stape, The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996

Red button John Stape, The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad, Arrow Books, 2008.

Red button Peter Villiers, Joseph Conrad: Master Mariner, Seafarer Books, 2006.

Red button Ian Watt, Conrad in the Nineteenth Century, London: Chatto and Windus, 1980

Red button Cedric Watts, Joseph Conrad: (Writers and their Work), London: Northcote House, 1994.


Joseph Conrad - writing table

Joseph Conrad’s writing table


Other novels by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad The Secret AgentThe Secret Agent (1907) is a short novel and a masterpiece of sustained irony. It is based on the real incident of a bomb attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1888 and features a cast of wonderfully grotesque characters: Verloc the lazy double agent, Inspector Heat of Scotland Yard, and the Professor – an anarchist who wanders through the novel with bombs strapped round his waist and the detonator in his hand. The English government and police are subject to sustained criticism, and the novel bristles with some wonderfully orchestrated effects of dramatic irony – all set in the murky atmosphere of Victorian London. Here Conrad prefigures all the ambiguities which surround two-faced international relations, duplicitous State realpolitik, and terrorist outrage which still beset us more than a hundred years later.
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon UK
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon US

 

Joseph Conrad Under Western EyesUnder Western Eyes (1911) is the story of Razumov, a reluctant ‘revolutionary’. He is in fact a coward who is mistaken for a radical hero and cannot escape from the existential trap into which this puts him. This is Conrad’s searing critique of Russian ‘revolutionaries’ who put his own Polish family into exile and jeopardy. The ‘Western Eyes’ are those of an Englishman who reads and comments on Razumov’s journal – thereby creating another chance for Conrad to recount the events from a very complex perspective. Razumov achieves partial redemption as a result of his relationship with a good woman, but the ending, with faint echoes of Dostoyevski, is tragic for all concerned.
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon UK
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2010


Joseph Conrad links

Joseph Conrad - tutorials Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Red button Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad - eBooks Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad - further reading Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Joseph Conrad - adaptations Joseph Conrad at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production notes, box office, trivia, and quizzes.

Joseph Conrad - etexts Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

Joseph Conrad - journal The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

Conrad US journal The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Joseph Conrad - concordance Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.


More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales


Filed Under: Joseph Conrad, The Novella Tagged With: Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, Literary studies, Modernism, study guide, The Novella

Joseph Conrad and Cinema

May 22, 2016 by Roy Johnson

film adaptations of Joseph Conrad’s novels and stories

Joseph Conrad and Cinema (literature and film) might seem an odd juxtaposition of genres, but in fact almost a hundred adaptations of Conrad’s works have been made for cinema and television. His work has also been transposed to works for opera and for television. The following selection was made on the basis of films which are currently available in DVD format.

There seem to be three theories of adaptation from prose narrative to cinema – just as there are three notions of translation from one language to another. The film critic Geoffrey Wagner described these as transposition, commentary, and analogy.

The first (transposition) is used to describe an attempt to make the cinematic adaptation of a literary text as accurate and as close to the original as possible in the language of film. This means that there will be no significant additions, deletions, or changes to the original.

The second (commentary) allows for the raw materials of a narrative to be rearranged or used as the basis for a re-interpretation of the basic story line. In this case the sequence of events in a drama might be given a different chronological arrangement, or its characters given new descriptions or motivations.

In the third (analogy) the source materials are used as the inspiration for a completely new creation which acts as an analogy or a metaphor of the original. In this case a story might be transposed to a different historical period or a different cinematic genre. The original will still be recognised, but it is being used for a different purpose.


Victory (novel 1913 – film 1996)

This was the first of Joseph Conrad’s works to be turned into a film when an American silent movie version was released in 1919. A second version appeared in 1930 produced by Paramount with the title Dangerous Paradise, which was one of the earliest films with a sound track recorded at sea. There was another Paramount version in 1940 directed by John Cromwell.

Coming from the Hollywood world of popular entertainment, it is not surprising that these three film versions focus their attention on the sentimental romantic link between a heroic protagonist (Heyst) and the threatened heroine (Alma) whom he rescues. The emphasis of the film versions is on exotic locations and a conventional love story. All three adaptations conclude with the very un-Conradian device of a happy ending – which completely destroys the bitter dramatic ironies in the events and personal tragedies of the original text. Later versions such as the 1996 adaptation below remain more faithful to the original plot.

Directed and adapted by Mark Peploe. Starring – Willem Dafoe (Axel Heyst), Sam Neil (Mr Jones), Rufus Sewell (Martin Ricardo), Irene Jacob (Alma), Simon Callow (Zangiacomo), Jean Yanne (Wilhelm Schomberg), and Mark Patterson (Captain Davidson). This version was filmed in Java.

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Victory – DVD film adaptation – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Details of the film – at the Internet Movie Database

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Victory – a tutorial and study guide

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Victory – Oxford Classics- Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Victory – Oxford Classics – Amazon US


The Secret Agent (novel 1907 – film 1936)

One of the most celebrated adaptations of a Conrad text is Alfred Hitchcock’s version of The Secret Agent, which was re-named Sabotage (1936) for cinema release in England. This was to distinguish it from Hitchcock’s other film Secret Agent based on the Ashenden stories by Somerset Maugham which was produced in the same year. When Sabotage was released two months later in the United States it was re-named yet again as The Woman Alone. This proved unpopular, so the original title was restored.

Hitchcock takes enormous liberties with the substance of Conrad’s deeply ironic political thriller: He invents a positive hero (the police sergeant, Ted); he creates a romantic liaison with the main female character Winnie Verloc; and he even gives the story a happy ending.

Hitchcock plays down the collusion that exists in the novel between government and anarchists, and the upper class society in which representatives of both groups circulate. And in a typical piece of self-reference, he transposes Verloc’s seedy newsagent’s shop (selling pornography) to a cinema.

Despite these changes, the film captures some of the tone of the original text – largely because Hitchcock, like Conrad, is fond of using irony – in his case visual juxtapositions that create a satirical author’s point of view on events – something with which Conrad’s text is drenched from start to finish.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Screenplay by Charles Bennett. Starring – Sylvia Sidney (Winnie Verloc), Oscar Homulka (Adolf Verloc), John Loder (Sergeant Ted), and Desmond Tester (Stevie). Filmed at Gainsborough Studios, London.

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Sabotage – Hitchcock’s 1936 film adaptation – Amazon UK

Red button Details of the film – the Internet Movie Database

Joseph Conrad and Cinema The Secret Agent – a tutorial and study guide

Joseph Conrad and Cinema The Secret Agent – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad and Cinema The Secret Agent – Oxford Classics – Amazon US


A 1996 version, written and directed by Christopher Hampton, stays reasonably close to the original story line, but despite an all-star (yet ill-assorted) cast the result is a less than convincing whole – which probably accounts for the film’s mediocre rating of 50% at Rotten Tomatoes.

Directed by Christopher Hampton, screenplay by Christopher Hampton, with music by Philip Glass. Starring – Bob Hoskins (Adolf Verloc), Patricia Arquette (Winnie Verloc), Gerard Depardieu (Ossipon), Jim Broadbent (Chief Inspector Heat), Eddie Izzard (Vladimir), Robin Williams (The Professor). Filmed in Ealing Studios and Greenwich, London.

Joseph Conrad and Cinema The Secret Agent – 1996 film adaptation on DVD – Amazon UK


Heart of Darkness (novella 1902 – film 1979)

Without doubt the best known cinematic adaptation of Conrad’s work is
Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979), his version of Heart of Darkness. It is successful precisely because it is not a faithful reproduction of the original novella, but a very imaginative interpretation of it.

The film realization transforms events from Europe’s imperialist exploitation of the Belgian Congo to America’s war in Vietnam in the 1960s. Even so, it remains amazingly faithful to the original. The narrator Marlow becomes Captain Willard, who is sent on a mission to terminate (‘with extreme prejudice’) the command of rogue Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, who has gone over the border into Cambodia with a band of followers.

It is worth noting that the film exists in a number of different versions – because it was edited several times. Minor variations aside, the most significant alternative option is called Apocalypse Now – Redux. This extended version includes a long sequence that was cut from the original where Willard visits an old French colonial plantation. I have watched both versions several times, and in my opinion the inclusion of the French plantation episode slows down the film and retards its dramatic momentum.

The only other point of note is that the film was originally distributed with two separate endings. In one, Willard kills Kurtz then returns to his boat and calls in an air strike which will (presumably) destroy the encampment. In the other he merely switches off the radio that is trying to contact him, and he sails away, back down river.

Director Francis Ford Coppola. Screenplay by Coppola and John Milius. Starring – Marlon Brando (Colonel Kurtz), Robert Duval (Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore), Martin Sheen (Captain Willard), Dennis Hopper (Photo Journalist), Harrison Ford (Colonel Lucas), Sam Bottoms (Lance Johnson). Filmed in the Philippines.

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Apocalypse Now – 1979 DVD film – Amazon UK

Red button Details of the film – the Internet Movie Database

Joseph Conrad and Film Heart of Darkness – a tutorial and study guide

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Heart of Darkness – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Heart of Darkness – Oxford Classics – Amazon US


In 1939 Orson Welles planned to make a film version of Heart of Darkness, but the project ran over budget and ultimately was abandoned. Welles turned the adaptation into a work for radio, and the following year made Citizen Kane instead.

There is also a 1994 version by the English director Nicholas Roeg that stays reasonably close to the original narrative. This stars John Malkovich (Kurtz) and Tim Roth (Marlow), with James Fox in a supporting role. This adaptation was made for Ted Turner’s television network. Filmed in Belize and London, UK.

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Heart of Darkness – 1994 DVD film – Amazon UK


Lord Jim (novel 1900 – film 1965)

This 1965 adaptation of Lord Jim by Richard Brooks turns the dark moral complexities of the original novel into an epic action-adventure story shot in wide-screen Technicolour. It also reduces the fragmented temporal arrangement of events into a simplified linear narrative, as well as blending some of the characters. There is also considerable simplification of the political and racial issues of the original narrative. Moreover, the central figure is transformed and loses all semblance of ambiguity. As the critic Gene M. Moore observes: ‘The Jim of the film is a conscious political activist in the style of the sixties, a determined man of action, quite unlike Conrad’s ‘romantic’ protagonist.’

Directed and adapted by Richard Brooks. Starring – Peter O’Toole (Jim), James Mason (Gentleman Brown), Curt Jurgens (Cornelius), Eli Wallach (The General), Jack Hawkins (Marlow), Dalia Lavi (The Girl), and Akim Tamiroff (Schomberg). Filmed in Hong Kong and Cambodia, with additional scenes in Shepperton Studios, London.

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Lord Jim – DVD – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Details of the film – at the Internet Movie Database

Joseph Conrad and Film Lord Jim – a tutorial and study guide

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Lord Jim – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Lord Jim – Oxford Classics – Amazon US


An Outcast of the Islands (novel 1896 – film 1951)

Joseph Conrad and Cinema

This is highly regarded amongst film critics as an acceptable combination of a faithful account of the original text with a persuasive film in its own right. Director Carol Reed sticks closely to the plot of the original novel, although he completely changes the geographic locations of the action. He also disregards some of the racial details which are an important part of ethnic tensions in the original narrative.

However, the most glaring difference between the novel and its adaptation is that Reed only uses four of the book’s five parts. In the original text, the protagonist Willems is killed by his mistress the native girl Alssa when his wife Joanna suddenly arrives, whereas in the film Willems is merely banished to live in isolation. This weaker ending was probably a concession to the Hollywood Production Code which prevailed at the time for films shown in the USA. This was a set of moral guidelines (also known as the Hays Code) which specified what was and was not acceptable for on-screen viewing. These rules included forbidding the depiction of crimes that go unpunished.

Directed by Carol Reed, screenplay by William Fairchild, with music by Brian Easdale. Filmed in Sri Lanka and Shepperton Studios, London. Starring – Ralph Richardson (Captain Lingard), Trevor Howard (Peter Willems), Wendy Hiller (Mrs Almayer), Wilfred Hyde White (Mr Vinck), Kerima (Alssa). Filmed in Sri Lanka and Shepperton Studios, London.

Red button An Outcast of the Islands – DVD film adaptation – Amazon UK

Red button Details of the film – at Internet Movie Database

Joseph Conrad and Cinema An Outcast of the Islands – a tutorial and study guide

Joseph Conrad and Cinema An Outcast of the Islands – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad and Cinema An Outcast of the Islands – Oxford Classics – Amazon US


Amy Foster (story 1901 – film 1997)

This is one of Conrad’s long short stories – some might call it a novella – which was adapted in 1997 by (Baroness) Beeban Kidron as a feature film (originally re-named Swept from the Sea). It tells the story of a poor economic migrant from Eastern Europe who is the sole survivor of a shipwreck in the English Channel. He has lost everything, is hungry, wretched, and knows no English. The local inhabitants regard him as a madman, shun him, and throw stones at him. He is befriended by Amy Foster and settles down with her to create a family. But what appears to be a tale of positive redemption turns into a grim parable of a pessimistic or even tragic view of the world.

Director: Beeban Kidron. Screenplay: Tim Willocks.. Starring – Vincent Perez (Yanko Gooral), Ian McKellan (Dr James Kennedy), Kathy Bates (Mrs Swaffer), Rachel Weisz (Amy Foster), Joss Ackland (Mr Swaffer), and Zoe Wannamaker (Mary Foster). British/American, Tapson Steel Films and Phoenix Pictures. Filmed in Cornwall, UK.

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Amy Foster – DVD film adaptation – Amazon UK

Red button Details of the film – at Internet Movie Database

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Amy Foster – a tutorial and study guide

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Amy Foster – Oxford Classics – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Amy Foster – Oxford Classics – Amazon US

Joseph Conrad and Cinema Amy Foster – Kindle eBook (includes screenplay)

© Roy Johnson 2016


More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales


Filed Under: Joseph Conrad Tagged With: English literature, Joseph Conrad, Literary studies, The novel

Joseph Conrad biography

September 18, 2009 by Roy Johnson

timeline of life, career, and literary works

Joseph Conrad biography1857. Joseph Conrad (full original name Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski) born December 3 in Berdichev (or vicinity) to Apollo Nalecz Korzeniowski and Evelina (Ewa) Bobrowska. Poland at that time is under the control of Russia.

1862. Conrad’s father exiled to Russia because of his political liberalism, accompanied by his wife and son.

1865. Conrad’s mother dies. Conrad taken into care of maternal uncle, Tadeusz Bobrowski.

1869. Conrad and his father return to Cracow. Father dies. Conrad sporadically attends school in Cracow.

1873. Leaves for a three-month-long stay in Switzerland and northern Italy. Announces his wish to have a career at sea, which the family resists.

1874. Leaves Cracow for Marseilles to begin life as a sailor on French ships.

1875. Apprentice on the Mont-Blanc, bound for Martinique.

1876-77. From January to July in Marseilles; from July to February 1877 on schooner Saint-Antoine to West Indies.

1877. Acquires (with three other men) the tartane, the Tremolino which carries arms illegally to the supporters of Don Carlos, the Spanish pretender. Conrad probably escaping from gambling debts accrued in Monte Carlo.


The Cambridge Companion to Joseph ConradThe Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad offers a series of essays by leading Conrad scholars aimed at both students and the general reader. There’s a chronology and overview of Conrad’s life, then chapters that explore significant issues in his major writings, and deal in depth with individual works. These are followed by discussions of the special nature of Conrad’s narrative techniques, his complex relationships with late-Victorian imperialism and with literary Modernism, and his influence on other writers and artists. Each essay provides guidance to further reading, and a concluding chapter surveys the body of Conrad criticism.


1878-79. Mounting financial problems. In February attempts suicide by shooting himself through the chest (which he later passed off as injury in a duel). Uncle Bobrowski pays off his debts and arranges for him to be transferred to England. On April 24 leaves Marseilles on British steamer Mavis. On June 18 sets foot in England at Lowestoft. Serves as ordinary seaman on coaster The Skimmer of the Sea.

1883. Passes mate’s examination on July 4. Meets uncle Bobrowski at Marienbad. Mate on the sailing ship Riversdale.

1884. Second mate on the Narcissus, bound from Bombay to Dunkirk.

1885-86. Second mate on the Tilkhurst; August 19, receives British certificate of naturalization. November 11, passes examination, receives his ‘Certificate of Competency as Master’. His first story, ‘The Black Mate’, submitted to Tit-Bits.

1887. First mate on Highland Forest. Hurt by a falling spar, hospitalized in Singapore (experience recalled in Lord Jim). Second mate on steamship Vidar (Singapore-Borneo).

1888. On Melita (bound for Bangkok), then his first command on the barque the Otago (Bangkok-Sydney-Mauritius-Port Adelaide). Experiences described in The Shadow-Line, Victory, The Secret Sharer. A Smile of Fortune, and other works.

1889. Summer in London; begins writing Almayer’s Folly.

1890. First trip to Poland since he left in 1874. In May he leaves for the Congo. Second in command, then in command of S. S. Roi de Belges.

1891-93. First mate on Torrens. English passenger (Jacques) reads the first nine chapters of Almayer’s Folly, offers encouragement; meets John Galsworthy aboard the ship. Visits uncle Bobrowski in Poland.

1893-94. Second mate on Adowa (London-Rouen-London). Ends his career as seaman on January 14.

1894. Uncle Bobrowski dies on January 29, 1894. In April Conrad sends Almayer’s Folly to T. Fisher Unwin.

1894-95. Writes An Outcast of the Islands.


Complete Critical Guide to Joseph Conrad - Click for details at AmazonThe Complete Critical Guide to Joseph Conrad is a good introduction to Conrad criticism. It includes a potted biography, an outline of the stories and novels, and pointers towards the main critical writings – from the early comments by his contemporaries to critics of the present day. Also includes a thorough bibliography which covers biography, criticism in books and articles, plus pointers towards specialist Conrad journals. These guides are very popular. Recommended.


1896. March 24, marries Jessie George.

1897. Completes The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’; friendship with R. B. Cunninghame Graham.

1898. Son Alfred Borys born January 14. In October moves to Petit Farm, Kent.

1899. In February completes Heart of Darkness.

1900. Finishes Lord Jim.

1904. Nostromo. Writes the memoir The Mirror of the Sea. Wife falls ill, and becomes practically an invalid.

1905. Spends four months in Europe.

1906. Spends two months in France. Second son John Alexander born August 2.

1907. Children ill in France. Returns to Pent Farm in August. The Secret Agent.

1908. A Set of Six (short stories).

1910. In June moves to Capel House, Kent. Seriously ill.

1911. Under Western Eyes.

1912. ‘Twixt Land and Sea, Tales.

1913-14. Chance. Writes Victory. Leaves for Poland in July 1914; meets Stefan Zeromski in Zakopane; caught by the war in August; escapes and returns to Capel House November 3.

1915. Victory. Within the Tides.

1916. Borys fights on the French front.

1917. The Shadow-Line. Writes prefaces for a new collected edition of his works.

1918. Borys, gassed and wounded, is hospitalized in Le Havre.

1919. The Arrow of Gold. Moves to Oswalds, Bishopbourne, near Canterbury, where he spends the last years of his life.

1920. The Rescue.

1921. Visits Corsica. Notes on Life and Letters.

1923. Visits New York (April-June). Reading from his Victory at home of Mrs. Arthur Curtiss James, May 10. The Secret Agent, Drama in Four Acts (adaptation of the novel). The Rover. Laughing Anne, a play (adaptation of “Because of the Dollars”).

1924. Jacob Epstein does Conrad’s bust. In May Conrad declines knighthood. Health deteriorates and he is bedridden. His wife is also ill. Both sons and Richard Curle are with them. Dies of heart attack 3 August. Buried in Canterbury.

1925. Suspense (incomplete). Tales of Hearsay.

1926. Last Essays.

1928. The Sisters (written in 1896; incomplete.)

1936. Jessie Conrad dies 6 December. Buried near her husband at Canterbury.

© Roy Johnson 2004


Joseph Conrad links

Joseph Conrad - tutorials Joseph Conrad at Mantex
Biography, tutorials, book reviews, study guides, videos, web links.

Red button Joseph Conrad – his greatest novels and novellas
Brief notes introducing his major works in recommended editions.

Joseph Conrad - eBooks Joseph Conrad at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats.

Joseph Conrad - further reading Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia
Biography, major works, literary career, style, politics, and further reading.

Joseph Conrad - adaptations Joseph Conrad at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production notes, box office, trivia, and quizzes.

Joseph Conrad - etexts Works by Joseph Conrad
Large online database of free HTML texts, digital scans, and eText versions of novels, stories, and occasional writings.

Joseph Conrad - journal The Joseph Conrad Society (UK)
Conradian journal, reviews. and scholarly resources.

Conrad US journal The Joseph Conrad Society of America
American-based – recent publications, journal, awards, conferences.

Joseph Conrad - concordance Hyper-Concordance of Conrad’s works
Locate a word or phrase – in the context of the novel or story.


More on Joseph Conrad
Twentieth century literature
More on Joseph Conrad tales


Filed Under: Joseph Conrad Tagged With: Biography, Joseph Conrad, Literary studies, Modernism

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • Next Page »

Related posts

  • 19C Authors
  • 19C Literature
  • 20C Authors
  • 20C Literature
  • Bloomsbury Group
  • Conrad – Tales
  • James – Tales
  • Nabokov – Stories
  • Short Stories
  • The Novella
  • Wharton – Stories
  • Woolf – Stories

Get in touch

info@mantex.co.uk

Content © Mantex 2016
  • About Us
  • Advertising
  • Clients
  • Contact
  • FAQ
  • Links
  • Services
  • Reviews
  • Sitemap
  • T & C’s
  • Testimonials
  • Privacy

Copyright © 2025 · Mantex

Copyright © 2025 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in