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Joseph Conrad

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tutorials, study guides, web links and commentary

Joseph Conrad close reading

March 18, 2014 by Roy Johnson

how to read and analyse a text

In literary studies there are various types of close reading. It is possible and rewarding to scrutinise a text closely, keeping any number of its features in mind. These can reveal various layers of significance in the work which might not be apparent on a superficial reading. You might focus attention on the text’s – Joseph Conrad close reading

  • language
  • meaning
  • structure
  • philosophy

The most advanced forms of close reading combine all these features in an effort to reveal the full and even hidden meanings in a work. The following tutorial shows a very simple form of close reading. It pays attention to the first two of these approaches – looking at the language that Conrad uses and how it is closely linked to what we know about the text.

This type of exercise can only be successful once the text has been read in its entirety. You need a grasp of the events and the story as a whole before it is possible to see how its meaning(s) are built up from small linguistic features of the narrative.

The Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov once observed ‘Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only re-read it’. What he meant by this apparently contradictory remark is that the first time we read a text we are busy absorbing information, and we cannot appreciate all the subtle connections there may be between its parts – because we don’t yet have the complete picture before us. Only when we read it for a second time (or even better, a third or fourth) are we in a position to assemble and compare the nuances of meaning and the significance of its details in relation to each other.

This is why the activity is called ‘close reading’. You should try to get used to the notion of reading and re-reading very carefully, scrupulously, and in great detail.

The extract which follows is the opening of Conrad’s early story An Outpost of Progress, first published in 1897. It deals with two European characters who have recently arrived at a trading station somewhere in central Africa. If you wish to read the complete story in conjunction with these tutorial notes, it is available free at Project Gutenberg.

redbtn An Outpost of Progress


Joseph Conrad close reading


An Outpost of Progress – the opening lines

There were two white men in charge of the trading station. Kayerts, the chief, was short and fat; Carlier, the assistant, was tall, with a large head and a very broad trunk perched upon a long pair of thin legs. The third man on the staff was a Sierra Leone nigger, who maintained that his name was Henry Price. However, for some reason or other, the natives down the river had given him the name of Makola, and it stuck to him through all his wanderings about the country. He spoke English and French with a warbling accent, wrote a beautiful hand, understood bookkeeping, and cherished in his innermost heart the worship of evil spirits. His wife was a negress from Loanda, very large and very noisy. Three children rolled about in sunshine before the door of his low, shed-like dwelling. Makola, taciturn and impenetrable, despised the two white men. He had charge of a small clay storehouse with a dried-grass roof, and pretended to keep a correct account of beads, cotton cloth, red kerchiefs, brass wire, and other trade goods it contained. Besides the storehouse and Makola’s hut, there was only one large building in the cleared ground of the station. It was built neatly of reeds, with a verandah on all the four sides. There were three rooms in it. The one in the middle was the living-room, and had two rough tables and a few stools in it. The other two were the bedrooms for the white men. Each had a bedstead and a mosquito net for all furniture. The plank floor was littered with the belongings of the white men; open half-empty boxes, torn wearing apparel, old boots; all the things dirty, and all the things broken, that accumulate mysteriously round untidy men. There was also another dwelling-place some distance away from the buildings. In it, under a tall cross much out of the perpendicular, slept the man who had seen the beginning of all this; who had planned and had watched the construction of this outpost of progress.


Close reading

01.   ‘White men’ is significant because the story is about the exploitation of black Africans by white Europeans. And ‘in charge’ is mildly ironic because we rapidly learn that they are only nominally in charge. It is their African assistant Makola who really determines what goes on, whilst they are hopelessly incompetent.

02.   The names ‘Kayerts’ and ‘Carlier’ tell us that the setting of the story is the Belgian Congo. Carlier is a French name, Kayerts is Flemish, and these are the two linguistic groups which comprise Belgium. The physical descriptions contrast the two men in a way that makes them slightly ridiculous, rather like the fat and thin man of comedy stereotypes. The term ‘perched’ reinforces this.

03.   ‘Maintained’ suggests just the opposite – that Makola has given himself the name Henry Price because he wants to identify his interests with those of his European employers. Conrad’s use of the racist term ‘nigger’ would have been considered unremarkable in 1897 when he wrote the story.

04.   The natives call him ‘Makola’ — and so does Conrad, which reinforces our interpretation of the previous sentence. His ‘wanderings’ suggest that he is experienced.

05.   Makola speaks two foreign languages in addition to his own native African language and his wife’s, which would be different. He is also a skilled clerk. Thus he has absorbed European culture, in contrast to the two Europeans, who are completely incapable of absorbing his culture. Yet he still worships evil spirits. He has a foot in both cultures.

06.   Loanda is on the coast of Angola, close to what was once called the ‘Slave Coast’. This is why it is ‘Mrs Price’ who understands what the slave traders are saying later in the story.

07.   ‘Rolled about’ suggests that the children are at ease in their natural environment. ‘Shed-like’ tells us how poor their accommodation is.

08.   ‘Impenetrable’ (a typically Conradian term) suggests that he keeps his feelings and motivation well hidden. It is a similar term to those which Conrad uses later to describe the topographical surroundings – ‘hopeless’ and ‘irresistible’. Such details contribute to why Africa in a moral sense defeats Europe in the story. ‘Despised’ however is a key insight into Makola’s judgement and feelings: this points to the element of racial conflict in the story.

09.   We notice that the ‘trade goods’ are an assortment of cheap rubbish. They are being traded for ivory, which is a precious commodity in Europe. The Africans are therefore being cheated by the Europeans. But ‘pretended’ tells us that Makola might be engaged in a little cooking-of-the-books on his own account.

10.   ‘Only one large building’: this is a very undeveloped trading station, and its isolation is emphasised.

11.   ‘Neatly’ and ‘verandah’ contrast sharply with Makola’s ‘shed-like’ dwelling. In other words, the Europeans have the better accommodation.

12.   The furniture is sparse, but the two men have a room each.

13.   The mosquito net would be very important: they are close to the equator , and therefore a long way from their European homeland.

14.   Notice how the two men do not know how to look after themselves. The floor is ‘littered’ with their ‘broken’ and ‘dirty’ goods. And how inappropriate some of those goods are: they have brought ‘town wearing apparel’ when they are in the tropics.

15.   ‘Dwelling place’ is another irony of Conrad’s as the narrator of the story. What he is referring to is the grave of the first station chief who has died of fever. So, Africa has already killed off one representative of Europe when the story opens.

16.   Conrad piles on more grim humour with the expression that the first director ‘slept’ under the cross – an ironic euphemism given that the director is dead. There is also a neat structural link here – because this is also the location of the story’s ending, where Kayerts will commit suicide, hanging himself on the cross.


Joseph Conrad close readingStudying Fiction is an introduction to the basic concepts and the language you will need for studying prose fiction. It explains the elements of literary analysis one at a time, then shows you how to apply them. The guidance starts off with simple issues of language, then progresses to more complex literary criticism.The volume contains stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Katherine Mansfield, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, and Charles Dickens. All of them are excellent tales in their own right. The guidance on this site was written by the same author.
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Joseph Conrad close reading

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 York: 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 – video biography


Other writing by Joseph Conrad

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.
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Joseph Conrad Heart of DarknessHeart 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. This volume also contains ‘An Outpost of Progress’ – the magnificent study in shabby cowardice which prefigures ‘Heart of Darkness’.
Joseph Conrad close reading Buy the book from Amazon UK
Joseph Conrad close reading Buy the book from Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2014


Joseph Conrad web links

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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: Close reading, English literature, Joseph Conrad, Literary studies, Study skills

Joseph Conrad critical bibliography

June 30, 2010 by Roy Johnson

selected literary criticism and commentary

Joseph Conrad critical bibliography Amar Acheraiou, Joseph Conrad and the Reader, London: Macmillan, 2009.

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

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

Joseph Conrad critical bibliography Harold Bloom (ed), Joseph Conrad (Bloom’s Modern Critical Views, New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2010.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Martin Bock and Robert Hampson, Joseph Conrad and Psychological Medicine, Texas Tech Press, 2002.

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

Joseph Conrad bibliography Stephen Donovan, Joseph Conrad and Popular Culture, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Wilfred S. Dowden, Joseph Conrad: The Imagined Style, Vanderbilt University Press, 1970.

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

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

Joseph Conrad bibliography Adam Gillon and Raymond Brebach, Joseph Conrad: Comparative Essays, Texas Tech Press, 1993.

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

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

Joseph Conrad bibliography Robert Hampson, Joseph Conrad: Betrayal and Identity, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Richard J. Hand, The Theatre of Joseph Conrad: Reconstructed Fictions, London: Macmillan, 2005.

Joseph Conrad bibliography G.G. Harpham, One of Us: Mastery of Joseph Conrad, Chicago University Press, 1997..

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

Joseph Conrad bibliography Jeremy Hawthorn, Joseph Conrad: Narrative Technique and Ideological Commitment, London: Edward Arnold, 1990.

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

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

Joseph Conrad bibliography Jakob Lothe, Joseph Conrad: Voice, Sequence, History, Genre, Ohio State University Press, 2008.

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

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

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

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

Joseph Conrad bibliography Lindsay Newman and Yves Hervouet, The French Face of Joseph Conrad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Joseph Conrad bibliography Kieron O’Hara, Joseph Conrad Today, Imprint Academic, 2007.

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

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

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

Joseph Conrad bibliography Richard J. Ruppel, Homosexuality in the Life and Work of Joseph Conrad: Love Between the Lines, Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1966.

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

Joseph Conrad bibliography Norman Sherry, Joseph Conrad: The Critical Heritage, London: Routledge, 1997.

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

Joseph Conrad bibliography Allan H. Simmons, Joseph Conrad in Context, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

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

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

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

Joseph Conrad bibliography Ian Watt, Conrad in the Nineteenth Century, London: Chatto and Windus, 1980.

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

Joseph Conrad bibliography Andrea White, Joseph Conrad and the Adventure Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Joseph Conrad critical bibliography

© 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 Tagged With: Bibliography, Joseph Conrad, Literary studies, Modernism, The novel

Joseph Conrad criticism

April 22, 2015 by Roy Johnson

annotated bibliography of criticism and comment

Joseph Conrad criticism is a bibliography of critical comment on Conrad and his works, with details of each publication and a brief description of its contents. The details include active web links to Amazon where you can buy the books, often in a variety of formats – new, used, and as Kindle eBooks. The listings are arranged in alphabetical order of author.

Joseph Conrad criticism

The list includes new books and older publications which may now be considered rare. It also includes print-on-demand or Kindle versions of older texts which are much cheaper than the original. Others (including some new books) are often sold off at rock bottom prices. Whilst compiling these listings I bought a copy of Jeremy Hawthorn’s early study Joseph Conrad: Language and Fictional Self-Consciousness for one penny.

Joseph Conrad and the Reader – Amar Acheraiou, London: Macmillan, 2009. This challenging study proposes new approaches to modern literary criticism and is fully devoted to Conrad’s relation to the reader, visual theory and authorship.

Joseph Conrad: The Major Phase – Jacques Berthoud, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978. A demonstration of the clarity, consistency, and depth of thought evident in Conrad’s novels written during the first decade of the twentieth century.

Joseph Conrad: Poland’s English Genius – Muriel Bradbrook, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941. A brief study of the life and work with stories considered in three main themes: the wonders of the deep, the hollow men, and recollections in tranquillity.

Joseph Conrad (Bloom’s Modern Critical Views) – Harold Bloom (ed), New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2010. A new selection of contemporary critical commentary, plus a bibliography and a chronology of Conrad’s life.

An Autobiography of Joseph Conrad – Stephen Brennan, Skyhorse Publishing, 2014. Scenes from Conrad’s memoirs and non-fictional writing stitched together to showcase some of the more exciting and trying times in the novelist’s life.

Joseph Conrad and Psychological Medicine – Martin Bock and Robert Hampson, Texas Tech Press, 2002. Revises our understanding of Conrad’s life, and rethinks the dominant themes of his work in light of pre-Freudian medical psychology.

Joseph Conrad: The Way of Dispossession – Hillel M. Daleski, Holmes & Meier, 1977.

Joseph Conrad and Popular Culture – Stephen Donovan, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. An analysis of Conrad’s relation to Victorian and early twentieth century popular culture. Illustrated summaries of the development of specific popular cultural forms—songs, early cinema, magazines, advertising, and tourism—underpin fresh readings of Conrad’s central works.

Joseph Conrad: The Imagined Style – Wilfred S. Dowden, Vanderbilt University Press, 1970. Analyzes the evolution of Conrad’s style and vision of imagery through a study of his novels and short stories.

Joseph Conrad and the Modern Temper – Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. A study that relates Conrad’s work to the crisis of modernity in the late nineteenth century, and discusses ‘faultlines’ – ambiguities and apparent aesthetic ruptures – in nine of the major novels and novellas.

Coercion to Speak: Conrad’s Poetics of Dialogue – Aaron Fogel, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1985. Fogel shows how Conrad shaped ideas and events and interpreted character and institutions by means of dialogues representing not free exchange but various forms of forcing another to respond.

Joseph Conrad: Comparative Essays – Adam Gillon and Raymond Brebach, Texas Tech Press, 1993. Gillon examines the affinities between Conrad’s descriptive art and both painting and film.

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

Conrad, Language, and Narrative – Michael Greaney, Cambridge University Press, 2001. Challenges old assumptions and engages current controversies in revelatory and rich close readings.

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

Joseph Conrad: Betrayal and Identity – Robert Hampson, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1992. Traces the development of Conrad’s conception of identity through the three phases of his career: the self in isolation, the self in society, and the sexualised self.

The Theatre of Joseph Conrad: Reconstructed Fictions – Richard J. Hand, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

One of Us: Mastery of Joseph Conrad – Geoffrey Galt Harpham, Chicago University Press, 1997. Conrad has traditionally been viewed as an admirable master: master mariner, storyteller, and writer. But his reputation has been linked in recent years to the negative masteries of racism, imperialism, and patriarchy.

Joseph Conrad: Language and Fictional Self-Consciousness – Jeremy Hawthorn, London: Edward Arnold, 1979. This book explores the interplay between technical accomplishment and artistic conception in Conrad’s work, addressing the question why some of Conrad’s novels are acknowledged masterpieces and others ‘incomplete successes’.

Joseph Conrad: Narrative Technique and Ideological Commitment – Jeremy Hawthorn, London: Hodder Arnold, 1992. This study argues that technical skills can be refined but these have to be complemented by a larger vision and commitment – “a conception of the whole” – otherwise it does not result in great art.

Sexuality and the Erotic in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad – Jeremy Hawthorn, London: Continuum, 2007. This book will open Conrad’s fiction to readings enriched by the insights of critics and theorists associated with Gender Studies and Post-colonialism.

Essays on Conrad – Frank Kermode (ed), Cambridge University Press, 2000. A series of critical studies written by Ian Watt, and edited by Frank Kermode.

The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Conrad – Owen Knowles, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Background study materials to all the major works – chronologies, critical essays, maps, bibliographies, and the development of Conrad’s critical reputation.

Conrad’s Narrative Method – Jakob Lothe, Ohio State University Press, 2008. This structuralist study of narrative is the first book-length attempt to apply recent developments in critical theory and practice to the whole canon of Conrad’s works.

Joseph Conrad – Tim Middleton, London: Routledge, 2006. A student’s introductory guide to Conrad, his life and work, with a chronology and suggestions for further reading

The Polish Shades and Ghosts of Joseph Conrad – Gustav Morf, New York: Astra Books, 1976.

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

Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Jeffery Myers, Cooper Square Press, 2001. This claims to be the definitive biography – but some readers disagree.

Joseph Conrad: A Life – Zdzislaw Najder, Camden House, 2007. This too is tipped as the definitive biography, because Najder’s command of English, French, Polish, and Russian allowed him access to a greater variety of sources than any other biographer, and his Polish background and his own experience as an exile have afforded him a unique affinity for Conrad and his milieu.

The French Face of Joseph Conrad – Lindsay Newman and Yves Hervouet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. This study presents the French face of Conrad’s work, and demonstrates that his knowledge of the French language and its literature (which preceded his acquisition of the English language) has profound implications for the study of the novels.

Joseph Conrad Today – Kieron O’Hara, Imprint Academic, 2007. Argues that Conrad’s scepticism, pessimism, emphasis on the importance and fragility of community, and the difficulties of escaping our history are important tools for understanding the political world in which we live.

Joseph Conrad: His Moral Vision – George A. Panichas, Mercer University Press, 2005. The book shows that morality in Conrad’s work is not reducible to an absolute category but must be apprehended in the forms of both moral crises and the possibility of moral recovery enacted in their complexity and tensions.

The Cambridge Introduction to Joseph Conrad – John G. Peters, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. This introduction is aimed at students coming to Conrad’s work for the first time. It covers Conrad’s themes of travel, exploration, and racial and ethnic conflict.

A Historical Guide to Joseph Conrad – John G. Peters, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Original essays showcase the abundance of historical material Conrad drew upon, and how he mined his early life as a sailor to create scathing indictments of colonialism and capitalist cupidity.

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

Homosexuality in the Life and Work of Joseph Conrad: Love Between the Lines – Richard J. Ruppel, London: Routledge, 2009. Conrad’s recurrent bouts of neurasthenia, his difficult courtships, late marriage, and frequent expressions of misogyny can all be attributed to the fact that Conrad was emotionally, temperamentally, and, perhaps, even erotically more comfortable with men than women.

Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography – Edward Said, Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1966. Said argues that Conrad, who set his fiction in exotic locations like East Asia and Africa, projects political dimensions in his work that mirror a colonialist preoccupation with ‘civilizing’ native peoples.

Joseph Conrad: The Critical Heritage – Norman Sherry, London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1973. A collection of reviews and essays tracing the development of Conrad’s critical reputation as a novelist.

Joseph Conrad: (Critical Issues) – Allan H. Simmons, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. First-time readers of Conrad are provided with in-depth contexts for appreciating a writer whose work is often challenging, while readers already familiar with Conrad’s fiction will find new perspectives with which to view it.

Joseph Conrad In Context – Allan H. Simmons, Cambridge University Press, 2014. This book examines the biographical, historical, cultural and political contexts that fashioned Conrad’s works. Each short chapter covers a specific theme in relation to Conrad’s life and his fiction.

The New Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – J.H. Stape, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Thirteen chapters offer diverse perspectives on emergent areas of interest, including canon formation, postcolonialism, gender, critical reception and adaptation.

The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad – John Stape, Arrow Books, 2008. A biography that puts its emphasis on Conrad’s life, rather than his work.

Joseph Conrad: Master Mariner – Peter Villiers, Seafarer Books, 2006. A biographical study which traces Conrad’s career as a sailor, and looks at the places he visited in relation to their depiction in his stories and novels.

Conrad in the Nineteenth Century – Ian Watt, London: Chatto and Windus, 1980. Close readings of the novels, full of quotes, detailed analysis and an acute explanation of the major themes of Conrad’s narratives.

Joseph Conrad: (Writers and their Work) – Cedric Watts, London: Northcote House, 1994. Explores Conrad’s importance and influence as a moral, social, and political commentator

Joseph Conrad and the Adventure Tradition – Andrea White, Cambridge University Press, 2008. A study showing how Conrad demythologized and disrupted the imperial subject constructed in earlier writing, and arguing that the very complexity of Conrad’s work provided an alternative, and more critical, means of evaluating the experience of empire.

Joseph Conrad criticism

© Roy Johnson 2015


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


Filed Under: Joseph Conrad Tagged With: English literature, Joseph Conrad, Literary criticism, Literary studies, Modernism

Joseph Conrad greatest works

September 17, 2009 by Roy Johnson

introductions, with links to tutorials and study guides

Joseph Conrad took hold of the late nineteenth century ‘action novel’ – the Imperialist Boy’s Own adventure story – and invested it with moral subtlety, aesthetic density, and a powerful sense of ideological seriousness. His writing can be demanding: be prepared for long sentences, complex syntax, abstract vocabulary, philosophic speculations, and an all-male environment. The rewards are profound insights into the human condition, superbly orchestrated moments of drama, and writing which explores issues of deep moral complexity.

He also pushed the complexities of story-telling further than they had ever been before. Keep in mind that Conrad, considered a master of English prose style, was Polish. He was writing in his second language. In this sense he is not unlike the Russian novelist, Vladimir Nabokov.

 

Joseph Conrad greatest works Almayer's FollyAlmayer’s Folly (1895) was Conrad’s first published novel. It is set towards the end of the nineteenth century in the Malay archipelago and deals with the conflicts between European colonialism and the native population. Dreams of easy wealth drive the Dutch trader Kaspar Almayer into grandiose schemes which come to nothing. His mixed-race wife despises him and is having an affair with a local native war lord. He completely misjudges the turmoil of events in which he becomes enmeshed and eventually descends into opium addiction and self-destruction. The novel contains many stereotypes of nineteenth century imperialist ideology, but its events are related in a manner which would lead to the development of literary modernism in the twentieth.
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Joseph Conrad greatest works 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.
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Joseph Conrad greatest works 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 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.
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Joseph Conrad greatest works Heart of DarknessHeart 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. This volume also contains ‘An Outpost of Progress’ – the magnificent study in shabby cowardice which prefigures ‘Heart of Darkness’.
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Oxford World Classics offers the best editions of Conrad’s work. They are largely based on the most accurate versions of the texts; and they feature introductory essays, a biography, explanatory notes, textual variants, a bibliography of further reading, and in some cases missing or deleted chapters. They are also terrifically good value.

Joseph Conrad greatest works 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.
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Joseph Conrad greatest works 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.
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Joseph Conrad greatest works 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.
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Joseph Conrad greatest works 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.
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Joseph Conrad greatest works 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.
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© 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.


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Filed Under: Joseph Conrad Tagged With: Almayer's Folly, An Outcast of the Islands, Chance, Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, Literary studies, Lord Jim, Modernism, Nostromo, The Secret Agent, Under Western Eyes, Victory

Joseph Conrad prose style

March 18, 2014 by Roy Johnson

how to start analysing prose style

Joseph Conrad was famous for his prose style – yet English was his third language, the first two being Polish and French. He was not unlike the novelist Vladimir Nabokov, who began writing in his native Russian, then switched to French, and finally started writing in English when he emigrated to America in 1940. Both of these authors are widely regarded as great prose stylists and masters of the English language.

Nevertheless, it is not unusual for some readers to complain about the difficulties they feel in grappling with Conrad’s style when encountering his writing for the first time. It’s true that his writing is not the clearest and easiest to understand: in fact a liking for his style is something of an acquired taste. But it is possible to come to terms with the difficulties he presents (the long, complex sentences and abstract language) with concentration, thoughtful reflection, and practice.

The tutorial notes that follow are one way of diffusing these problems by analysing some technical aspects of Conrad’s prose style. They are in no way rigorous or systematic: there are other types of close reading and analysis which can throw light on aspects of a writer’s prose style (see the examples listed below).

The extract which follows is from the opening pages of Conrad’s early story An Outpost of Progress, first published in 1897. It deals with two European characters who have recently arrived at a trading station somewhere in central Africa. If you wish to read the complete story in conjunction with these tutorial notes, it is available free at Project Gutenberg.

redbtn An Outpost of Progress


Joseph Conrad prose style

First edition – J.M.Dent & Sons 1912


Sample text

The two men watched the steamer round the bend, then, ascending arm in arm the slope of the bank, returned to the station. They had been in this vast and dark country only a very short time, and as yet always in the midst of other white men, under the eye and guidance of their superiors. And now, dull as they were to the subtle influences of surroundings, they felt themselves very much alone, when suddenly left unassisted to face the wilderness; a wilderness rendered more strange, more incomprehensible by the mysterious glimpses of the vigorous life it contained. They were two perfectly insignificant and incapable individuals, whose existence is only rendered possible through the high organization of civilized crowds. Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings. The courage, the composure, the confidence; the emotions and principles; every great and every insignificant thought belongs not to the individual but to the crowd: to the crowd that believes blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and of its morals, in the power of its police and of its opinion. But the contact with pure unmitigated savagery, with primitive nature and primitive man, brings sudden and profound trouble into the heart. To the sentiment of being alone of one’s kind, to the clear perception of the loneliness of one’s thoughts, of one’s sensations—to the negation of the habitual, which is safe, there is added the affirmation of the unusual, which is dangerous; a suggestion of things vague, uncontrollable, and repulsive, whose discomposing intrusion excites the imagination and tries the civilized nerves of the foolish and the wise alike.


Joseph Conrad prose style – analysis

Sentence length
Some of the sentences here are quite long – particularly the last. This is because he is expressing quite complex ideas or generating a very charged atmosphere. But they are not all long: the first, which deals with an action by characters, is much shorter.

Narrative mode
Conrad adopts the common third person omniscient narrative mode. That is, he tells us what his characters do, how they feel, and what they think. But you might notice that statements such as the one begriming ‘Few men realise’ is of a different kind than, say, ‘The two men watched’. Conrad stops telling the story for a moment and is offering us his opinion. In fact everything else up to the end of the paragraph is Conrad’s own general view of the world. He suddenly becomes what is called an ‘intrusive narrator’ at this point. He intervenes in his own narrative to comment on the story and offer his philosophic reflections on life in general.

It’s easy to overlook this distinction when engaged with the drama of the narrative, but it has an important bearing on our interpretation of the story. That’s because these intrusions into the story help him to project a particular view of the world – which add up to an ideology.

Language
You will probably notice that he uses a number of terms which will cause most people to think ‘Now what exactly does he mean by that?’ These are expressions such as ‘irresistible force’, ‘unmitigated savagery’, ‘negation of the habitual’, and ‘discomposing intrusion’. What make these difficult to grasp at first is that he is switching from the very concrete and specific descriptions of the two men and the trading station to an abstract and very general consideration of their moral condition.

This is almost the language of philosophy. The terms ‘force’, ‘savagery’, ‘habitual’, and ‘intrusion’ are all abstract nouns. We are not necessarily conscious of this whilst reading the text, but they take us away from the ‘story’ and force us to consider rather large scale social reflections.

In fact the combination of rather unusual and powerful adjective qualifying an abstract noun – ‘unmitigated savagery, ‘profound trouble’ – is a ‘trade mark’ of Conrad’s prose style. You will see many other examples in almost all his stories and novels.

Prose rhythm
In prose writing, rhythm is easier to feel than to define. You do not need to go into all the technical detail of stress analysis as you might with poetry, but it should be possible to sense that Conrad puts a lot of rhythmic emphasis into what he writes, using a number of literary devices more commonly found in poetry:

  • alliteration
  • repetition
  • balanced clauses

Alliteration
‘The courage, the composure, the confidence’ is a fairly obvious example of alliteration, with an insistent stress falling on the initial letter c in each of these words. Notice too that they are all abstract nouns.

Repetition
The expression ‘with primitive nature and primitive man’ combines both alliteration (in the initial letter p) with repetition of the word ‘primitive’ itself. You might also note that his use of the second ‘primitive’ here throws the emphasis onto the word that follows it – ‘man’. There are plenty of other examples of the same thing in this paragraph: ‘more strange, more incomprehensible’ and ‘every great and every insignificant’ are just two.

Repetition is just one of the rhetorical devices at work here: and rhetoric is ‘the art of speakers or writers to persuade, inform, or motivate their audience’.

Balanced clauses
The rather long sentences in this passage also contain a different kind of repetition – that is, clauses which are similar to each other in grammatical construction. These are sometimes called ‘balanced clauses’. The final sentence begins with the phrase ‘To the sentiment of being alone’, and in order to ‘tug’ us through the fairly lengthy reflection that follows Conrad repeats the initial ‘to’ and the construction of the clause of which it is a part. So we have, ‘To the sentiment of being … to the clear perception … to the negation of the habitual’.

Finally, look at the construction of the sentence that begins ‘Few men realise that their life’. Conrad wants to explain what he has in mind by using the term ‘life’, so he inserts two clauses which expand the notion. But in doing so, and whilst we are so to speak ‘waiting’ for the end of the sentence, his terms of expansion are nicely balanced: ‘the very essence of their character’ (with its emphasis falling on ‘essence’ and ‘character’, is paralleled by the following clause ‘their capabilities and their audacities’ with the emphasis falling again on two abstract nouns.

The abstraction forces readers into a quasi-philosophical mode of thinking about ‘life’. What exactly does he mean by people’s ‘capabilities’ and ‘audacities’? His answers will come from the events of the narrative itself – which show his two characters to be lazy, stupid, and moral cowards. This appears to ‘prove’ or at least justify his judgements about human beings and society in general – which is part of any writer’s conscious or unconscious objective.


Joseph Conrad prose styleStudying Fiction is an introduction to the basic concepts and the language you will need for studying prose fiction. It explains the elements of literary analysis one at a time, then shows you how to apply them. The guidance is carefully graded, starting from simple issues of language then progressing to more complex issues. The single volume contains stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Katherine Mansfield, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, and Charles Dickens. All of them are excellent tales in their own right. The guidance notes on this page were written by the same author.
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Close reading exercises

redbtn Sample close reading of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House

redbtn Sample close reading of Katherine Mansfield’s The Voyage

redbtn Sample close reading of Virginia Woolf’s Monday or Tuesday


Other novels by Joseph Conrad

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
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Joseph Conrad Heart of DarknessHeart 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. This volume also contains ‘An Outpost of Progress’ – the magnificent study in shabby cowardice which prefigures ‘Heart of Darkness’.
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon UK
Joseph Conrad Buy the book from Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2014


Joseph Conrad links

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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
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Filed Under: Joseph Conrad Tagged With: Close reading, English literature, Joseph Conrad, Literary studies, The Short Story

Joseph Conrad web links

December 10, 2010 by Roy Johnson

a selection of web-based archives and resources

This short selection of Joseph Conrad web links offers quick connections to resources for further study. It’s not comprehensive, and if you have any ideas for additional resources, please use the ‘Comments’ box below to make suggestions. The university-based web sites tend to be rather old in terms of graphic design, but have the advantage of depth in terms of content.

Joseph Conrad - portrait

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.


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.

Almayer's Folly

© Roy Johnson 2010


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Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

June 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

critical survey and literary essays

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness book looks at the famous novella in detail from the perspective of the early twenty-first century and offers a series of critical essays which plot its reception and the establishment of its reputation. It begins with a long essay by the editor exploring its political, social, and literary background, offering a defence of Conrad. This is a counter to the criticisms made by Edward Said and Chinua Achebe which claim that Conrad, for all his liberalism, cannot conceal a submerged racism and imperialism from his critical gaze.

Joseph Conrad's Heart of DarknessHeart of Darkness was written in 1899, and was based loosely on Conrad’s own experience as a seaman with a commission to sail up the Congo river in 1890. During the twentieth century it has become a central text in the discussion of European imperialism , and possibly the best known of Conrad’s works – even though his first commercial success did not come until much later with the publication of Chance in 1913.

D.C.R.A. Goonetilleke even puts in a spirited defence of Conrad as an even-handed writer in gender terms. I’m afraid he’s on something of a hopeless quest here, as anyone who has read widely in Conrad will know – particularly some of his deservedly less well-known short stories.

There’s a chapter which traces the critical debate on Heart of Darkness from its publication to the present day. This allows readers the opportunity to witness how succeeding generations have interpreted the text, and it’s a refreshing reminder that literary criticism has fads and fashions which change and even disappear.

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, historicist, feminist, deconstructionist, and narratological. These will allow the serious students of literature at whom the book is aimed to sense the academic climate and see what to aim at in their own work.

The feminist critique takes up the conventional objection that Conrad’s works don’t include many female characters, and even includes a bizarre recipe for those who cannot accept that a writer might not share contemporary values.

Nina Pelikan Straus concluded that while women readers may find some way to appreciate the text (she offers a number of reading strategies), in the end the best that women readers can do is remain detached from Heart of Darkness and refuse to grant the status of high art to the work.

There’s also an interesting bonus – an appendix in which two film adaptations of the text are analysed. Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now! (1979) and Nicholas Roeg’s Heart of Darkness (1994) are compared with the original text in a way which casts interesting light on both, though no mention is made of the ‘deleted’ scenes on the old French rubber plantation in Coppola’s film which would reinforce the fact that his work was about imperialism and not just war.

It’s a pity even more divergent views are not represented, but maybe there’s just not enough room in one volume. As Douglas Hewitt, one of the many critics cited in this very scholarly survey observes: “Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has had more critical attention per word than any other modern prose work”.

© Roy Johnson 2007

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D.C.R.A. Goonetilleke, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Abingdon: Routledge, 2007, pp.160, ISBN 0415357764


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Lord Jim – a study guide

November 8, 2010 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

Lord Jim (1900) explores the tensions of European colonialism and its role in the East Indies in the late nineteenth century. Although the principal characters are English, the presence of Dutch, French, and German characters spreads the responsibility of ideological and cultural dominance during the highpoint of imperialism, and it does so over a geographic area which stretches from Aden in the Arabian Sea to Manila in the Philippines. It’s also a very dramatic story that explores one of Conrad’s favourite themes – moral redemption via suffering and renunciation.

Joseph Conrad - portrait

Joseph Conrad


Lord Jim – critical commentary

Narrative method

Lord Jim was the first of Conrad’s full length novels to feature as principal narrator Charles Marlow, the former sea captain. Marlow assembles the facts of the story from a number of different sources – from people he knows, and from information passed on to him from others. The details are then relayed to a group of people Marlow is addressing – and hence to the reader. However, they are not relayed in chronological order but re-arranged to create maximum dramatic effect.

Marlow knows the outcome of the whole story from the outset, and from times to time he offers tantalising glimpses into what is to come. But for the main part he withholds crucial items of information, which creates both dramatic tension and a sense of grim expectancy.

The narrative comprises a radically dislocated series of events. A conventional opening relates Jim’s career as chief mate of the Patna up to the very point of its accident in the Arabian Sea. But instead of describing the dramatic events of the Patna’s fate and the scandalous behaviour of its crew, the story suddenly jumps forward to the judicial inquest, and is then taken over by Marlow who reminisces about Jim from a point in time long after the events of the novel have concluded.

Marlow intersperses the narrative with sketches of other characters and accounts of other events, and it is only very gradually revealed that Jim has abandoned the Patna along with the other crew members. Thus the narrative expands and contracts in terms of the psychological interest with which Conrad imbues his characters. For instance the few moments that comprise Jim’s fears and misgivings as the ship is abandoned are stretched out over more than twenty pages, and the evening dinner at which Jim recounts these events to Marlow lasts more than fifty pages.

In common with his other novels narrated by Marlow (Heart of Darkness, Chance, and Youth) Conrad uses a literary sleight of hand to produce a narrative delivered by Marlow almost as if he were an eye-witness to events, even though he has only heard about them from the accounts of others. In the episode of the Patna‘s collision the narrative is actually passed back and forth between Jim (who tells Marlow what happened) and Marlow (who is relaying the story to his audience at a much later date).

“How long he stood stock-still by the hatch expecting every moment to feel the ship dip under his feet and the rush of water take him at the back and toss him like a chip, I cannot say. Not very long – two minutes perhaps.

Here is literary magic at work close to hand. Conrad simultaneously acknowledges uncertainty in the account of events (‘I cannot say …perhaps’) whilst giving the impression of honest accuracy (‘two minutes’).

The novel is as much about Marlow himself as the people whose story he tells. He is empathetic to Jim with very little reason to be so – except that he describes him in distinctly homo-erotic terms:

I looked at him. The red of his fair sunburnt complexion deepened suddenly under the down of his cheeks, invaded his forehead, spread to the roots of his curly hair. His ears became intensely crimson, and even the clear blue of his eyes was darkened many shades by the rush of blood to his head. His lips pouted a little, trembling as though he had been on the point of bursting into tears.

To an inattentive reader, Marlow appears to be describing Jim’s actions in the story (which he only knows about from Jim) but a great deal of the time he is imagining how Jim might have felt. He is appealing to his audience to empathise with Jim’s predicament in the drama he is reconstructing.

This is not unlike Marlow’s attitude to Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, where he is predisposed to Kurtz before he even meets him. He imagines the sort of person he must be and invests his actions with some sort of grandeur. We have no independent evidence by which to judge – only what Marlow tells us.

The narrative chain

The first part of the novel starts out with the story reaching readers in what appears to be a conventional third person omniscient narrative mode. We are given Jim’s background history and taken through his participation in the lead up to the Patna incident. But then an unnamed narrator reveals himself as a colleague of Marlow’s – to whom he hands over the narrative.

The story then purports to be Marlow relating events to a group of people who sit smoking in semi-darkness – a device Conrad was to use again in Heart of Darkness written two years later. The next three-quarters of the book is Marlow’s account of events. Jim tells him what happened on the Patna and then passes on the news of his subsequent life on future occasions when Marlow visits him a his outpost in Patusan.

But then the latter part of the novel is narrated in a manner which puts a great strain on any reader’s credulity. Marlow leaves Jim for the last time with a quarter of the novel still to go, never to see him again. So how does the story reach us?

The unnamed outer narrator (one of Marlow’s audience) tells us that just one of the listening group (described at the ‘privileged reader’) has the remainder of the story revealed to him. The information comes in the form of documents and an explanatory letter sent to him by Marlow. The principal document is a report written by Marlow of an account offeredto him by a dying man – Gentleman Brown.

There are all sorts of logical gaps, inconsistencies, and problems of credibility attached to this ending, and it must be said that this is not the only novel of Conrad’s that gave him difficulties in shaping a satisfactory conclusion to his story.

For instance, the concluding document details the conflict between Jim and Gentleman Brown as the warring groups battle against each other for dominance in Patusan. Brown survives the conflict and escapes, only to encounter illness and near death in the Indian Ocean. Marlow is providentially on hand as he dies, and so hears Brown’s account of the final conflict – which he of course relays as if he were a first-hand witness to the events.

But Brown escapes before the final scenes of Jim’s moral collapse and suicide, so Conrad rather implausibly suggests that these events were relayed to Marlow by Tamb’ Itam – Jim’s loyal bodyguard and servant. This is a man who earlier in the novel could barely speak English.

More importantly, even if we assume that the outer narrator, the ‘privileged reader’ of the documents and Marlow are all present at the two hundred and fifty page meeting which delivers the first three quarters of the narrative – we are not told how the ‘privileged reader’ passes on the story to the outer narrator.

It seems to me that Conrad simply creates problems for himself which could have been avoided. A simple third person omniscient narrative mode would have been a lot easier for delivering the story – or even a narrative recounted by Marlow with fewer contortions of plot and coincidence.

It is often claimed that this complex narrative mode allowed Conrad to show events and characters from multiple perspectives. But the fact is that almost everything we know – characters, setting, and events – are filtered through Marlow’s consciousness. He describes characters – and tells us what to think about them through both conventional description and layer upon layer of philosophising about the moral nature of man (rarely woman) in society.

It also has to be said that Conrad makes very little effort to put any distance between himself as autheor and Marlow as his fictional narrator. Readers have every reason to feel that Marlow is a mouthpiece for Conrad. His opinions are almost indistinguishable from those that Conrad records in his prefaces and notebooks. And Marlow slips repeatedly between the role of first person and third person omniscient narrator. It’s as if Conrad gets carried away with his own (admittedly gripping) story, and forgets the logic of the narrative structures he has built for himself.

The imperialist legacy

It should be noted that despite all of the high-minded sermonising and quasi-philosophic reflections that Conrad puts into Marlow’s words, the novel also contains many of the clichés of English Imperialism, handed to us straight from King Solomon’s Mines. The protagonist Jim is a young, handsome, blue-eyed, curly haired Billy Budd figure who dresses all in white. The natives eventually worship him as a figure of unimpeachable correctness. A mixed-race girl falls in love with him, and he even has a native guard who is so selflessly loyal to Jim that he even pretends to sleep so that he will not worry his master.


Lord Jim – study resources

Lord Jim Lord Jim – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon UK

Lord Jim Lord Jim – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon US

Lord Jim Lord Jim – Penguin Modern Classics – Amazon UK

Lord Jim Lord Jim – Penguin Modern Classics – Amazon US

Lord Jim Lord Jim – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon UK

Lord Jim Lord Jim – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon US

Lord Jim Lord Jim – Everyman Library Classics – Amazon UK

Lord Jim Lord Jim – Everyman Library Classics – Amazon US

Lord Jim Lord Jim – Norton Critical Editions – Amazon UK

Lord Jim Lord Jim – Cliffs Notes – Amazon UK

Lord Jim Lord Jim – York Notes – Amazon UK

Lord Jim Lord Jim – eBook versions at Project Gutenberg

Lord Jim Lord Jim – AudioBook MP3 unabridged – Amazon UK

Joseph Conrad 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

Pointer Notes on Life and Letters – Amazon UK

Pointer Joseph Conrad – biographical notes

Pointer Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Red button Joseph Conrad at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources

Lord Jim


Lord Jim – plot summary

Lord JimJim is a young English sailor fired with romantic dreams of heroism in the face of danger. On a sea voyage transporting pilgrims from Singapore to Jeddah in the Red Sea, his ship the Patna is involved in a collision. Thinking that the vessel is sinking, the crew (including Jim) abandon ship. However, the ship does not sink, but is rescued by a French boat and towed to safety. There is an official inquest into the incident in Bombay, before which the German captain absconds and at which Jim is stripped of his seaman’s certificate in dishonour.

Marlow meets Jim at the inquest and sympathises with his situation. Understanding Jim’s wish to remove himself from the disgrace, Marlow finds him work in a remote location. Jim is successful, but when a reminder of the Patna affair resurfaces, Jim walks away from his position. This pattern of events is repeated, with Jim retreating further and further from civilization.

He eventually is given a job as trading post chief by Stein, a friend of Marlow’s, and Jim finds himself in Patusan, a remote location in the East Indies. At first he is regarded suspiciously by the natives, but he makes himself popular by overthrowing a local war lord. He takes a common-law wife, and after two or three years feels that he has successfully reclaimed his self-respect and thrown off the shame of the Patna incident.

However, ‘Gentleman’ Brown a criminal marauding Englishman who has stolen a ship and run short of supplies, sails into Patusan and decides to plunder the natives at whatever the cost. He attacks the natives and sets up a temporary camp. Jim negotiates with him and persuades him to leave peacefully, so as to avoid further conflict. But he double-crosses Jim and attacks the natives again, killing the local chief’s son. Jim realises that he has betrayed the trust of the people who looked up to him, and he commits a form of suicide by allowing the local chief to shoot him.


Lord Jim – film version

FILM – Lord Jim (1965) – starring Peter O’Toole

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


Principal characters
I an unnamed outer narrator who relays Marlow’s story
Charles Marlow a former sea captain, the principal narrator of events
Jim (James) a young English sailor, fired with notions of heroism (his surname is never revealed)
Fat German the cowardly captain of the Patna
Archie Ruthvel principal shipping master in Bombay
Captain Elliot master attendant in Bombay
Montague Brierly head of the Patna enquiry, a haughty naval assessor, captain of the Ossa, who commits suicide
Mr Jones chief officer of the Ossa
French Lieutenant gun boat officer who boards the stricken Patna
Chester seaman cum trader in Bombay with guano island scheme
Captain Robinson former pirate, his business partner
Denver rice mill owner in Rangoon to whom Marlow recommends Jim
Stein German trader and entomologist
Cornelius old cringing man, Jim’s predecessor in Patusan
Doramin Stein’s overweight ‘war comrade’ in Patusan – chief of the second regional power
Dain Waris Doramin’s brave son
Tunku Allang Rajah in Patusan
Sherif Ali robber baron war lord in Patusan
Jewel Jim’s mixed-race common-law wife, step-daughter of Cornelius
Tamb’ Itam Jim’s loyal native guard and servant
‘privileged reader’ an unnamed character to whom Marlow sends documents
‘Gentleman’ Brown ‘son of a baronet’ pirate and buccaneer

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 - manuscript page

Manuscript page from Heart of Darkness


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 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

 


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.

© Roy Johnson 2010


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Twentieth century literature
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Filed Under: Joseph Conrad Tagged With: English literature, Joseph Conrad, Literary studies, Lord Jim, The novel

Nostromo – a review

October 13, 2009 by Roy Johnson

revolution and capital accumulation in Latin America

Nostromo is generally regarded by most Conrad commentators as his greatest novel. It embraces wide ranging themes of political struggle, international capitalism, the expansion of Europe and the United States into Latin America, various forms of personal heroism and sacrifice, and the dreams and obsessions which can lead people to self-destruction. The location of the novel is Costaguana, a fictional country on the western seaboard of South America, and the focus of events is in its capital Sulaco, where a silver mine has been inherited by English-born Charles Gould but is controlled by American capitalists in San Francisco.

Nostromo reviewCompeting military factions plunge the country in a state of civil war, and Gould tries desperately to keep the mine working. Amidst political chaos, he dispatches a huge consignment of silver, putting it into the hands of the eponymous hero, the incorruptible Capataz de Cargadores, Nostromo. However, things do not go according to plan. It is almost impossible to provide an account of the plot without giving away what are called in movie criticism ‘plot spoilers’. But the silver does not reach its intended destination, and the remainder of the novel is concerned with both the civil conflict and the attitudes of the people who know that the silver exists, and their vainglorious attempts to acquire it.

The novel has a curious but on the whole impressive structure. The first part of the book is an extraordinarily slow-moving – almost static – account of Costaguana and the back-history of the main characters in the story. Then the central section – more than half the novel – is taken up with the dramatic events of just two or three days and nights in which rebel forces attack the town, the silver is smuggled out, and the scene is set for disaster.

This central section of the novel which covers the scenes of military insurgency and high drama conveys very convincingly the uncertainty of civil war, the powerlessness of individuals, and the force of large scale events. Bandits suddenly become generals, all normal communications are cut off, and nobody can be sure where to turn to for law and order. Amazingly, around two hundred pages of narrative cover only two or three days of action – much of it at night.

The main point of Conrad’s story is that the silver of the mine corrupts almost all who come into contact with it. The inheritance and running of the mine estrange Charles Gould from his wife; once Nostromo has concealed the silver, his knowledge of its location eventually corrupts him; and the rebel leader Sotillo is driven almost made with desire to possess it. Only the saintly Emilia Gould has the strength to resist it, refusing to know where it is buried, even when the information is offered by the last person to know, on his death bed.

A great deal of the narrative tension in this long novel turns on who knows what about whom, and many of the key scenes are drenched in dramatic irony built on coincidences which have all the improbability of the nineteenth century novel hanging about them. At one point a completely new character suddenly appears as a stowaway on a boat, and then improbably survives a collision with another ship in the dark by hanging onto the other boat’s anchor. And this is merely a plot device allowing him to transmit misleading information to his captors – and incidentally allows Conrad to indulge in a rather unpleasant bout of anti-Semitism.

In common with many other novels from Conrad’s late phase, the narrative is conveyed to us in a very complex manner. It passes from third person omniscient narrator to first person accounts of events by fictional characters. Authorial point of view and the chronology of events both change alarmingly; the narrative is sometimes taken over temporarily by a fictional character, or is recounted via an improbably long letter which we are meant to believe is being written (in pencil) in the heat of gunfire and other tumultuous events.

There’s also a great deal of geographic uncertainty. As reports come in from one end of the country to the other, and the loyalty of one province and its leaders is mentioned in relation to another – as well as its strategic position on the seaboard – I began to wish for a map to conceptualise events.

Once a heroic solution has been found for the plight of the beleaguered loyalists (an epic Paul Revere type ride on horseback by Nostromo) the story suddenly flashes forward to the successful years of recovery and the aftermath. Nostromo seeks to consolidate his successful position by a judicious marriage, but is distracted by his passionate love for his intended’s younger sister. Even this detail is linked to the silver of the mine, and it brings about the truly tragic finale.

Despite all Conrad’s stylistic peculiarities (and even some lapses in grammar) this is a magnificent novel which amply repays the undoubtedly demanding efforts required to read it. But that is true of many modern classics – from Mrs Dalloway to Ulysses and Remembrance of Things Past.

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2009


Joseph Conrad, Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp.524, ISBN: 0199555915


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, Nostromo

Nostromo – a tutorial

January 27, 2010 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links

Nostromo (1904) is Joseph 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, and 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 - portrait

Joseph Conrad


Nostromo – critical commentary

Political theme

This is generally regarded by most Conrad commentators as his greatest novel. It embraces wide ranging themes of political struggle, international capitalism, the expansion of Europe and the United States into Latin America, various forms of personal heroism and sacrifice, and the dreams and obsessions which can lead people to self-destruction.

Nostromo - first editionThe location of the novel is Costaguana, a fictional country on the western seaboard of South America, and the focus of events is in its capital Sulaco, where a silver mine has been inherited by English-born Charles Gould but is controlled by American capitalists in San Francisco. Competing military factions plunge the country in a state of civil war, and Gould tries desperately to keep the mine working. Amidst political chaos, he dispatches a huge consignment of silver, putting it into the hands of the eponymous hero, the incorruptible Capataz de Cargadores, Nostromo.

However, things do not go according to plan. It is almost impossible to provide an account of the plot without giving away what are called in movie criticism ‘plot spoilers’. But the silver does not reach its intended destination, and the remainder of the novel is concerned with both the civil conflict and the attitudes of the people who know that the silver exists, and their vainglorious attempts to acquire it.

Structure

The novel has a curious but on the whole impressive structure. The first part of the book is an extraordinarily slow-moving – almost static – account of Costaguana and the back-history of the main characters in the story. Then the central section – more than half the novel – is taken up with the dramatic events of just two or three days and nights in which rebel forces attack the town, the silver is smuggled out, and the scene is set for disaster.

This central section of the novel which covers the scenes of military insurgency and high drama conveys very convincingly the uncertainty of civil war, the powerlessness of individuals, and the force of large scale events. Bandits suddenly become generals, all normal communications are cut off, and nobody can be sure where to turn to for law and order. Amazingly, around two hundred pages of narrative cover only two or three days of action – much of it at night.

The silver of the mine

The main point of Conrad’s story is that the silver of the mine corrupts almost all who come into contact with it. The inheritance and running of the mine estrange Charles Gould from his wife; once Nostromo has concealed the silver, his knowledge of its location eventually corrupts him; and the rebel leader Sotillo is driven almost made with desire to possess it. Only the saintly Emilia Gould has the strength to resist it, refusing to know where it is buried, even when the information is offered by the last person to know, on his death bed.

Map of South AmericaA great deal of the narrative tension in this long novel turns on who knows what about whom, and many of the key scenes are drenched in dramatic irony built on coincidences which have all the improbability of the nineteenth century novel hanging about them. At one point a completely new character suddenly appears as a stowaway on a boat, and then improbably survives a collision with another ship in the dark by hanging onto the other boat’s anchor. And this is merely a plot device allowing him to transmit misleading information to his captors – and incidentally allows Conrad to indulge in a rather unpleasant bout of anti-semitism.

Narrative mode(s)

In common with many other novels from Conrad’s late phase, the narrative is conveyed to us in a very complex manner. It passes from third person omniscient narrator to first person accounts of events by fictional characters. Authorial point of view and the chronology of events both change alarmingly; the narrative is sometimes taken over temporarily by a fictional character, or is recounted via an improbably long letter which we are meant to believe is being written (in pencil) in the heat of gunfire and other tumultuous events.

There’s also a great deal of geographic uncertainty. As reports come in from one end of the country to the other, and the loyalty of one province and its leaders is mentioned in relation to another – as well as its strategic position on the seaboard – readers might begin to wish for a map to conceptualise events.

Once a heroic solution has been found for the plight of the beleaguered loyalists (an epic Paul Revere type ride on horseback by Nostromo) the story suddenly flashes forward to the successful years of recovery and the aftermath. Nostromo seeks to consolidate his successful position by a judicious marriage, but is distracted by his passionate love for his intended’s younger sister. Even this detail is linked to the silver of the mine, and it brings about the truly tragic finale.

Despite all Conrad’s stylistic peculiarities (and even some lapses in grammar) this is a magnificent novel which amply repays the undoubtedly demanding efforts required to read it. But that is true of many modern classics – from Mrs Dalloway to Ulysses and Remembrance of Things Past.


Nostromo – study resources

Red button Nostromo – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon UK

Red button Nostromo – Oxford World’s Classics – Amazon US

Red button Nostromo – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon UK

Red button Nostromo – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon US

Red button Nostromo – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

Red button Nostromo – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

Red button Nostromo – Everyman’s Library – Amazon UK

Red button Nostromo – Everyman’s Library – Amazon US

Red button Nostromo – York Notes – Amazon UK

Red button Nostromo – 1996 BBC adaptation on VHS – Amazon UK

Red button Nostromo – eBook version at Project Gutenberg

Red button The Complete Novels of Joseph Conrad – Kindle eBook editions

Red button Conrad: Nostromo – Landmarks of World Literature – Amazon UK

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad – Amazon UK

Red button Joseph Conrad: A Biography – Amazon UK

Red button Nostromo – audioBook version at Project Gutenberg

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

Red button Joseph Conrad at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

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

Nostromo


Nostromo – plot summary

Charles Gould is a native Costaguanero of English descent who owns the silver-mining concession in Sulaco. He is tired of the political instability in Costaguana and its concomitant corruption, and puts his weight behind the Ribierist project, which he believes will finally bring stability to the country after years of misrule and tyranny by self-serving dictators. Instead, the silver mine and the wealth it has generated become a bone for the local warlords to fight over, plunging Costaguana into a new round of chaos. Among others, the revolutionary Montero invades Sulaco; Señor Gould, adamant that his silver should not become spoil for his enemies, entrusts it to Nostromo, the trusted ‘capataz de los cargadores’ (head longshoreman).

NostromoNostromo is an Italian expatriate who has risen to that position through his daring exploits. (‘Nostromo’ is Italian for mate or boatswain, as well as a contraction of nostro uomo – ‘our man’.) He is so named by his employer, Captain Mitchell. Nostromo’s real name is Giovanni Battista Fidanza – Fidanza meaning ‘trust’ in archaic Italian. Nostromo is what would today be called a shameless self-publicist. He is believed by Señor Gould to be incorruptible, and for this reason is entrusted with hiding the silver from the revolutionaries. He accepts the mission not out of loyalty to Señor Gould, but rather because he sees an opportunity to increase his own fame.

A pivotal episode in the novel takes place at night, when Nostromo, together with an escaping French journalist Decoud, sets out at sea to save the silver – not realising he has a stowaway on board. His boat is in collision with a ship bringing the rebels, and he is forced to scuttle his boat and bury the silver on an island.

In the end it is Nostromo, together with a ruined cynic of a doctor and a journalist (all acting for self-serving reasons), who are able to restore some kind of order to Sulaco. It is they who are able to persuade two of the warlords to aid Sulaco’s secession from Costaguana and protect it from other armies. Nostromo, the incorruptible one, is the key figure in setting the wheels in motion.

In Conrad’s universe, however, almost no one is incorruptible. The exploit does not bring Nostromo the fame he had hoped for, and he feels slighted and used. Feeling that he has risked his life for nothing, he is consumed by resentment, which leads to his corruption and ultimate destruction, for he had kept secret the true fate of the silver after all others believed it lost at sea, rather than hidden on an offshore island. In recovering the silver for himself, he is shot and killed, mistaken for a trespasser, by the father of his fiancée, the keeper of the lighthouse on the island of Great Isabel.


Joseph Conrad – biography


Principal characters
Charles Gould Owner of the San Tome silver mine
Emilia Gould His principled and attractive wife
Dr Monygham An English expatriate doctor, survivor of torture
Martin Decoud Radical French journalist
Giorgio Viola Ex-Garibaldian inn-keeper
Teresa Viola Viola’s elder daughter – Nostromo’s ‘intended’
Giselle Viola Viola’s younger daughter
Captain Mitchell English harbour chief
Colonel Sotillo Savage insurrectionary leader
Pedro Montero Costaguanan war lord
Antonia Avellanos a patriot
Sulaco mining town on the coast of Costaguana
Costaguana Imaginary country on the western seaboard of South America

Conrad’s writing

Joseph Conrad - manuscript page

Manuscript page from Heart of Darkness


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's writing table

Joseph Conrad’s writing table


The Complete Critical Guide to Joseph ConradThe 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.

 


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.
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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.
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© Roy Johnson 2010


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

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