Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)

The English author of Polish origin represents, along with H. James, the
passage from Victorianism to Modernism, that is why his work, that of a transition
novelist, is a combination of different elements (romantic, realistic, impressionistic,
symbolical).
The experience of a great traveller and sea captain were turned into fiction but
the autobiographical component is transformed according to his own imagination;
thus the rewriting of certain memories is rather impressionistic.

V. Woolf noticed the ‘existence of a double vision’ in Conrad’s work, i.e.

Conrad celebrates the sea adventures almost like a romantic, but at the same time he
applies to the narrative a cool, detached and ironic analysis.
At first look his novels appear to be in the tradition of Defoe’s, Stevenson’s
and Kipling’s picaresque novels, inheriting the romantic image of adventure, but, on
the other hand, he interprets adventure according to symbols.

In his essays and prefaces Conrad reflected upon the type of novel he tried to
create and some of the concepts invoked by Conrad are:

 The form of the novel is very important; when he talks about construction, he
emphasises such characteristics as:
 cadence – the rhythm of the narrative, a sophisticated one
 ‘progression des faits’ (psychological progression) – the story is
constructed in such a way that as we read, the effects of the narrative
become more and more obvious
 time shift (ellipses, flashbacks, flashforwards) – his narrative does not
follow the objective chronology of the realists
 the principle of justification – according to Conrad, the new type of novel
implies a new justification; justification of the use of the new technique, as
he wanted to avoid all accusations of subjectivity  the development of
the story must be motivated at all levels
 tension of the action – the novel = some kind of energetic object, that is
why tension should be apparent at the level of the adventures narrated but
also at the level of the characters’ feelings. In Conrad’s words: ‘As the
story progresses, it must be carried faster and faster and with more
intensity’.
 verisimilitude is another principle theorised by Conrad which implies that
all the events, even if they seem sensational or exotic, have to be
plausible/credible.
  Characters are a key element of Conrad’s narrative technique since he is
considering the novel, the plot and its development from the level of the
character. He says: ‘the most important element in the novel is the effect of
events upon characters and not events in themselves’.

Conrad’s characters are sometimes completely detached from reality; they

fantasise, invent or even lie about the events. According to the author, the
novel ceased to be a continuous and logical succession of events and became a
juxtaposition of impressions. Therefore, we witness a shift from the
plot/events to the impression of the character. (in Heart of Darkness Marlow’s
perspective as a character is nothing but the perspective of the author,
subjective and credible).

 In the preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus, Conrad rejects the traditional
types of fiction (realism, naturalism, romanticism, sentimentalism) and
defines the novel as ‘impressions conveyed through the senses’ or the moral
and emotional atmosphere of a certain place and time.

Gradually, Conrad developed a personal type of fiction in which objective

realism was replaced by the technique of multiple points of view, which brought
about, in terms of narrative, an atmospheric deconstruction of reality. Thus, the
meaning of a situation or episode in the story derives from the variety of
perspectives.

Joseph Conrad’s work is generally divided into 3 chronological periods:

1. 1895-1904 - series of novels, novellas and short stories;

- a period of experimentation, characterised by the relation
between content and literary technique
* Almayer’s Folly (1895)
* An Outcast of the Islands (1896)
* The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ (1897)
* Heart of Darkness (1899)
* Lord Jim (1900)
* The Inheritors (1901)
* Typhoon (1902)

2. 1904-1914 - the age of political novels and of complex narrative structures;

- his best novels, representative for the full maturity of the author
* Nostromo (1904)
* The Secret Agent (1907)
* Under Western Eyes (1911)
* Chance (1913)
3. 1914-1924 - the period marked a decline in inventiveness and a return to
the sea adventure novel.
* Victory (1915)
* The Shadow Line (1917)
* The Arrow of Gold (1919)
* The Rover (1923)

The first period of creation is characterised by a choice of existential and moral

themes. Conrad searched for the self-realization of characters often against an alien
background, not primarily social but cosmic.
The novels dramatise the painful process of initiation and integration and deal
with the dangers of isolation. Characters often have to face a hostile and indifferent
world and most of them display difficulties of perception and communication. Their
relationship with external landscape is dramatic, the setting is irrational and has a
destructive force over the individual characters, be it the sea, river, jungle or even
the city (often perceived as an infernal city, urban jungle).
Conrad’s moral themes provide that the heroes act according to a certain code
of conduct: honour, loyalty, moral commitment, solidarity. The source of conflict
appears when these values are threatened by egocentricity, by strange characters who
display an irrational, violent, almost inhumane behaviour. e.g. In Heart of Darkness,
Kurtz is an egomaniac who destroys the purity of the world around him.

The theme of disloyalty and betrayal is quite frequent and is related to the
theme of annihilation or total destruction. Conrad’s novels generally have a tragic
ending, many of the heroes have grotesque deaths or they end in suicide, that is why
the corresponding symbolic image in his novels is the fall or the leap in the void.

The second period of creation introduces political and ideological themes along
with the existential and moral preoccupations. Conrad did not restrain himself to
describing politics but he was interested in the way politics affected the individuals,
as he states: ‘The object of every tale should be the discovery of some kind of
moral’, hence the importance of a permanent state of investigation. Conrad tackles
the issue of political confusion and the way in which it is reflected upon the
individuals. In almost all his work from this period the main motives are betrayal,
loneliness and alienation.

Another possible classification of Conrad’s novels would take into account the
setting and the general theme (since exploration often means self discovery):
 jungle narratives (the plot takes place in the jungle);
 sea narratives;
 political novels.
 In the jungle narratives, the protagonists are Europeans, and therefore the idea
of Europeanness acquires political and ideological connotations. His characters try
to escape Western civilisation; they feel alienated, dissatisfied with the country in
which they live, they choose a state of primitivism, escaping the traps of civilisation.
We witness some sort of attraction of the lost Paradise and the Orient becomes
the symbol of Paradise regained, while the corrupt and frivolous Western civilisation
is described in antithetic terms.
In Victory, the main character, Heyst, is the typical European who abandons
his civilisation to conquer the lost paradise which proves to exist only in his mind.
Sometimes, heroes abandon their country to escape punishment, as it is the case of
Jim in Lord Jim. In most cases, escaping civilisation is seen or anticipated as a
purification act. The counterpart of this concept is offered by Heart of Darkness
where the jungle is identified with the negative forces of nature. Nature has a corrupt
role, it is some kind of demonic force, destroys people by awakening in them the
basic instincts.

Conrad was not a primitivist, he was not idealising the primitivism of nature
because of an obvious lack of evolution. In all his narratives, the expedition to the
jungle or to the sea is utopious, revealing the dangerous actions of the human mind.
In almost all his novels we are dealing with the problem of moral
disintegration and the wild environment of the Tropics is the background of a painful
process of destruction and self-destruction. The title of Heart of Darkness stands for
the expedition to the heart of darkness that all characters have to undertake as part of
the process of exploration and self-discovery.
Almayer’s Folly and An Outcast of the Islands are such jungle narratives set in
the exotic background of remote islands like Malaya. They contain impressive
descriptions of tropical rivers and forests where violent incidents and emotions are
favoured. Because of his choice of themes, Conrad was involved in one of the most
important debates of his age – the superiority of the white race over the other races.
He was often accused of racism and imperialism as he defended the superiority of
the white race and its role as a civiliser.

Novels

In Almayer’s Folly, the character Kaspar Almayer is a traitor who comes to the
island of Borneo to conquer the world, and his vision of grandeur is materialised in
the building of a castle.
His vision of becoming a civiliser is gradually corrupted and annihilated.
Almayer dies of sorrow because his daughter, Nina, vanishes in the jungle,
following a local chief. She eventually remains uninvolved, not accepting the
combination of races.
An Outcast of the Island forwards a rather romantic/sentimental plot. The main
character, Willems, a clerk, belongs to the lower middle class and seems to be
marked by destiny in a negative way. His moral situation becomes more complex
when he takes an interest in a native girl, Aissa, their relationship being described as
‘unreasonable’.
Willems is eventually violently killed by Aissa, a complex character who
mirrors Willems’s own dilemmas. She is the outcast who abandoned her tribe, her
kin, and she symbolically becomes a murderer. Such characters exhibit the same
pattern of physical and moral destruction.
There is wide range of characters called by critics ‘isolators’; they isolate
themselves from civilisation, generally on island  cf. ital. isola.
Also, Conrad’s novels are full of characters governed by greed, hate, violent
passions, who desperately try to transcend the barriers of space, time and race.

Heart of Darkness has a complicated structure; described by M. Pop Cornis in

Modern Fiction as:
‘mixture of oblique autobiography, adventure story, psychological odyssey,
political satire, symbolic prose poem, black comedy, spiritual melodrama,
sceptical meditation’.
Heart of Darkness is a very vivid stylistically novella and has a genuine
picturesque quality  turned into films several times.

The meaning of Heart of Darkness is closest to the exploration of the

subconscious, of the human mind.
The type of character Conrad imposes here is the negative civiliser, as his
ambition was to create a charismatic but also depraved genius, able to change the
world around him in a negative way.
The structure of the book is that of a tale within a tale. The story is narrated
by Marlow and presents his journey into the heart of the unknown, as a sort of
initiation (similarities with Dante’s Inferno). Conrad uses multiple narrators to
render Kurtz’s biography. The structure demonstrates a modernist attitude, as the
rearrangement of the text illustrates the method of indirection (the story is told in a
zigzag way).
Conrad questions the relation between observer and reality. The
characters/listeners in the story are invited to interpret the plot and in the and the
narrator/author takes a silent pause inviting the readers to take part in finding the
deep meaning of the text.
From the title it becomes obvious that we are dealing with contradictory
notions and the story will be full of paradoxes. Conrad presents these paradoxes not
only through explicit statements, but also through ambiguous images and
polysemantic symbols. The story is also based on the exploitation of opposing
colours – as black and white acquire a double symbolism in the novella.
 Kurtz is a corrupted but also charismatic, fascinating character who belongs to
the large category of villains. As the text suggests, Kurtz is a modern embodiment of
Faustus, who has sold his soul for power and wealth.
Marlow, the alter-ego of the author, is gradually dominated by immobility and
the impossibility to perceive the world around him. As he advances into the depth of
the jungle, life appears to him as ‘a mere dance of death’, ‘an overheated catacomb’.
His travel on the steamer having as a crew some 20 cannibals stands for a symbolic
return to the beginning of time.

In Lord Jim, the method of indirection is even more obvious. After a 3 rd person,
omniscient voice at the beginning of the novel, the narrative is continued by Marlow
(example of intertextuality). The beginning of the novel offers however a sketch of
Jim’s story, or at least half of it, including his background and the inquiry following
the desertion of the Patna.
Basically, Jim is the son of a parson who goes to sea out of a sense of
adventure that makes him dream of achieving something spectacular (like saving
people’s lives). We later on find Jim as a mate-captain on the ‘Patna’, a ship carrying
Malayans on a pilgrimage to Mecca. When the ship hits an underwater object, the
crew decide to leave the ship and run for their lives. Jim follows the crew and
abandons the ship. The Patna does not sink and the passengers are rescued by a
French ship. This results in an investigation which found the officers, including Jim,
guilty. That is where Marlow meets Jim and, somehow moved by his story, decides
to help him find a job.
Marlow’s story is based not only on his story, but also on various other
sources, such as Jim’s accounts, Antonio’s (one of the survivors from Patna), A
French lieutenant, Jewel, Brown or other characters in the story. The impression is
that the reader cannot completely get to know Jim, as Marlow has difficulties putting
together the pieces of evidence he managed to collect.