Seminar 1 The concept of character in

Joseph Conrad’s fiction

Mon, Jan 30

Tasks
1. Read the Introduction to The Nigger of the “Narcissus” by
Joseph Conrad (Find the attachment. It is both in the original and in
Ukrainian – in the same file)
2. Read the novella (tale) Freya of the Seven Isles by Joseph
Conrad (attached)

Items for Discussion

Joseph Conrad’s neo-romantic characters

БАТИР 1)The author’s prospect of creativity in the Introduction to The

Nigger of the “Narcissus”.
Joseph Conrad is one of the most complex figures of modernism/neo-
romanticism, capable of turning entertaining moments of life at sea into
exploring unexpected philosophical depths. For him life must have an ultimate
meaning, but one that can never be made fully known. And we see that in the
introduction to the novel where the author does not aspire to reach some
breathtaking, triumphant conclusions in his works or unclose some mysteries of
life but rather his focus is the reader.
He aspires to use literature as art to snach people out of the ordinary work
and distractions of life and make them stop, be focused on the moment, the
colours, the shadows, the light. He wants the reader to live in that moment,
whether sigh or smile - that is the purpose he has and which he calls out other
styles and trends i literature in not achieving but putting it off to the side rather
than as the centerpiece.
I think this is what his creativity, shown in the Introduction, wants to
achieve - a new world of literature and a new type of storytelling.
As he mentions in the Introduction: “My task which I am trying to
achieve is …to make you hear, to make you feel — … before all, to make you
see.” In this he finds the fullness of written art. And as for him reaching success
in art is far from being attained as he considers life too short for it but there are
the steps he makes to step away from those “gods” as he calls them, which is
realism, romanticism, naturalism must be left behind to not clutter the view of
true art in and of itself.

ГУТНИК 2) Philosophical problems of the works.

Freya of the Seven Isles
The loneliness of Freya, the indecision of her distant father, the weakness
of Jesper, who is in love with his brig, the barbarism and vindictiveness of
Heemskirk - these reflections of the individual's state of mind characterize the
island as a place that condemns a person to failure. In the novel "Freya of the
Seven Islands" there is a clear definition of time - an hour, a few months ago,
the next seven weeks, four days, two years, etc. Events in these works change
rapidly one after another.
- Beauty
Freya Nelson (or Nielsen) was the kind of girl one remembers. The oval of
her face was perfect; and within that fascinating frame the most happy
disposition of line and feature, with an admirable complexion, gave an
impression of health, strength, and what I might call unconscious self
confidence - a most pleasant and, as it were, whimsical determination.
But no one wanted to know what is hidden behind this beauty. It was the
loneliness and hopelessness.
- Authority
The father will never agree to give his daughter's hand to the Englishman
Jesper, for fear of angering the representative of the Dutch authorities
Heemskirk, because then his quiet life will end! He might even lose his house!
Lieutenant Heemskirk desires Freya, if “love” is too dignified a word, and
in one climatic scene — when she’s playing the piano, no less — makes a pass
at her. Repulsed and indignant, she slaps his face, and from there the tragedy of
the piece plays out. Lieutenant Heemskirk, having once seen Jesper and Freya
alone, realizes that he is being fooled, and decides to take revenge. Using his
official position, he arrests the captain of the Bonito, takes the brig in tow and
puts him on a reef at the highest point of the tide. The ship is dead! There is no
force in the world that could take it off the reef, and it is doomed to slowly
collapse under the onslaught of waves and marauders, tightly stuck near the
shore.
- The pressure of society
Jesper Ellen, a young captain and owner of the snow-white brig "Bonito",
an amazingly fast and beautiful sailboat, Freya's secret fiance. With him on a
beautiful white ship, she decides to run away as soon as she is twenty-one years
old.
Why did Freya have to wait eleven months until her 21st birthday? She
wanted no one to blame her. As if someone's reproaches matter when a person
decides his fate. However, once having appointed a term, she could no longer
abandon her decision.
- Shipwreck
The death of the ship, with which all the dreams of the happiness of Jesper
and Freya were connected, makes a terrible impression on young people, they
literally fall ill.
Freya soon died, either from anemia, or from pneumonia, or from defeat in
the fight against the absurdities of men and the loss of faith in her own strength.
Sad story.
 The Introduction to The Nigger of the “Narcissus”
“And almost without laying down the pen I wrote a preface, trying to
express the spirit in which I was entering on the task of my new life.”
The “Preface” to this unfortunately titled novel is a manifesto of literary
impressionism and a kind of Conrad’s literary credo. Art, he declares, is the
pursuit of truth, pretty much like philosophy or science, but while scientists
study the world, and philosophers ideas, artists plunge inside themselves and
explore their feelings and emotions in order to appeal to their readers’ feelings
and emotions.
In Joseph Conrad's Preface to The Nigger of the “Narcissus”, he states that
the artist should contemplate on producing a work that is tightly planned and
created, being mindful of every single line. An art should contain reflections on
“illuminating and convincing” qualities within sensuously stimulating events,
and thus, be “enduring and essential”. The artistic appeal, made to the delicate
human nature, is also made to a person’s temperament, which is an unchanging,
permanent gift to feel and find significance within passing events. And using
such temperament, the artist can appeal to different senses and eventually to the
dormant “feeling of fellowship with all creations”.
So Conrad hopes that his preface, in which he explains his aims in art is
going to make his readers more sympathetic to him and to his very high bar,
which a few people “the deserving and the fortunate” manage sometimes to
clear.

Good versus evil

balance and disbalance
sense of being

КІЗИМА+МЕЛЬНИК
3) The system of characters and a new type of a character – neo-romantic.
Find the protagonist and compare him/her with a romantic one.

I consider Jasper Allen to be a protagonist in this novella. Let’s compare

the neo-romantic protagonist with a romantic one, for example Mr. Darcy. So,
the neo-romantic hero is an irrational type with a high degree of mental activity.
On the contrary, the romantic character is defined as an impulsive-irrational
type. There is the existence of "two worlds": the world of the ideal, the world of
dreams and the world of reality. There is an irreparable discrepancy between
them. This brings romantic artists into a mood of despair and hopelessness,
"world sorrow". Jasper tries to be optimistic and happy. Moreover, he does his
best in order to make his dreams come true. So, dreams are not only dreams,
they come to something real and desirable.
 Many Romantic heroes have been somehow rejected by society or are
otherwise non-conventional in their ideas and ways of life - some might be
recluses, some might be obsessed with a lost love. Darcy is the protagonist in a
literary work, and the primary focus is on the character's thoughts rather than
their actions. Also, the character of the romantic hero differs from others in its
inner strength, integrity, focus on the life idea, passion of struggle.

Jasper is more likely to be the victim of his own passions — his author is
much more realistic and prosaiс. Moreover, the neo-romantic writer tends to
show us the development of his hero's character under the burden of some
psychological trauma. Jasper is an extraordinary and strong personality, often
endowed with good traits, an outcast who opposes the social majority, a seeker
of romance and adventure. The plot of a neo-romantic work is characterized by
tension, elements of danger, struggle, mysterious or supernatural events. Neo-
romantics mainly depicted not the mass, but a bright, unique individuality that
stands out from the mass, fights, sometimes despite a hopeless situation, with
evil, scrupulosity, and the grayness of everyday life.

СОНІЧКА, Я ВЗЯЛА ПЕРШУ ЧАСТИНУ ПИТАННЯ, ТОБІ

ЗАЛИШАЮ ДРУГУ, ЯКЩО ЩО, ТО Я НА ПІДХВАТІ.

Dwell upon the thought of Natalia Zhluktenko that Conrad as a neo-

romantic author aims at making his character face a complex moral problem
under extraordinary circumstances.
I agree that Conrad makes the sea test these people’s qualities: their
endurance and morality, but he does not either criticize or sympathize with any
of them. He gives them a chance to find their own solution and meaning in life.

What problems and circumstances are described? Does the character

manage to cope with them?

For the adventure and exotic elements in his books Conrad is ranked
among neo-romanticists, but the psychological aspect of his works makes him
one of modernists: he gives a very deep insight into the inner world of the
person.
It is a story with a setting, four major and two minor characters (not
including the narrator), and two pivotal events, one an indirect response to the
other.

Problems and circumstances

The reader is largely caught unawares by the tragic turn of events at the
end of the story. For – as we are apparently made to understand – having been
separated from Jasper Allen by the malevolence of his ‘rival’ Heemskirk, the
despairing Freya dies of pneumonia, while the man she loves is driven mad by
the sight of the brig that was to have been their home and their escape to
freedom being spitefully run aground by the revengeful Dutch lieutenant, who
accuses Jasper of involvement in the illegal arms trade and drives his mate
Schultz to suicide.
The final difficulty of Conrad’s “Freya” is directly related to the
eponymous main character and the context of the responsibility for the
ultimate failure of their love.
Is she really ‘cold’ especially in the light of her own doubts (whose
validity is questioned by her father on the grounds of ill health) as to
whether she would have actually joined Jasper? And, if so, why is it that it
is she and not the man she loves who pays the ultimate price for the failure
of their love, being on edge because their plan to elope has come to
nothing? Or is it rather Jasper who is cold, given his fixation with the
Bonito, the white brig which he identifies with Freya to the point of not
being able to distinguish between the two.

The main problems described are:

● Heemskirk makes some unspecified political arrangements
with the ‘authorities’, then steams out in his gunboat to intercept Jasper in
the Bonito. He accuses him of illegal trading, and takes over the brig,
towing it towards Macassar. But he deliberately wrecks the brig on a reef
at high tide.
● The Bonita’s stock of arms has disappeared – which
arouses suspicions of illegal arms trading by Jasper. It emerges that the
arms were stolen and sold by Schultz, but when he makes his confession
to the authorities they refuse to believe him. He ends up cutting his own
throat. The brig meanwhile is looted whilst it is stranded on the reef.

And we can clearly see that the characters of the story don’t manage to
cope with the problems that arise and their circumstances. The death of the ship,
which was the source of all Jesper and Freya's dreams of happiness, makes a
terrible impression on both young people, and they literally fall ill. Firstly,
Jesper becomes depressed:
 Love for material things
 Come up with another way to run away
 The main complex moral problem is stated at the beg. Of the book

“Eyes sunk an inch into his head; nothing but skin on the bones of his face,
a skeleton in dirty white clothes. That’s what he looked like. How Freya ... But
she never did—not really. He was sitting there, the only live thing for miles
along that coast, on a drift-log washed up on the shore.”
 Secondly, after getting news of the wreck of the Bonito, Freya also
becomes ill, then she tells her father everything about the elopement plan.
Nielsen goes to see Jasper, who is in terminal despair. Nielsen sells up and takes
Freya to live in Hong Kong. But She reproaches herself for not being more
courageous and dies of pneumonia.
She couldn’t bear the thought of living without Jesper or she couldn’t
forgive herself for not being more courageous and not being able to
communicate with her father, to explain him everything earlier. And the
narrator at the end states that it’s not the pneumonia she dies of.
And last but not least, as already was mentioned, Schulz ends up
cutting his own throat.

МИКИТИЧ+ОСІЄВСЬКА 4) Male and female characters in the works

by Joseph Conrad.
This little-known novella from one of the masters of the form is so unusual
for Joseph Conrad's work in several respects, although not in its exotic maritime
setting or its even more exotic prose—it is unusual in that it is one of his very
few works to feature a woman as a leading character, and to take the form of a
romance.
Female characters
Freya of the Seven Islands
WARNING: almost everything is PERSONAL OPINION BECAUSE
THERE’S 000000 ON THE INTERNET:
I think there are three female characters in the novella Freya of the Seven
Islands.
The first one is Freya herself. She is a beautiful daughter of a widower
called Nielsen. Interestingly, in the Norse mythology Freya is a goddess of
beauty and love. She is depicted as a loving woman who respects and pities her
father and, although pretty reserved, but affectionate towards Jasper.
Surprisingly and refreshingly for a 1911 novella, she seems to be the most
reasonable character among all those men around her. Freya is a managerial
type, and although her insights into others' characters—her father's likelihood to
descend into anxiety attacks if she tells him her marriage plans ahead of time,
for example—are spot-on, her fatal flaw is, perhaps, taking too much on her
own shoulders and failing to communicate to any of the other characters until
it's far too late. Freya's extreme self-sufficiency is part and parcel of her
sensibleness, and is indeed opposite of the flaws so often laid on female
characters (hysteria, clinginess, indecisiveness, etc.). Yet Conrad depicts even
this as something that can be taken too far, however admirable it might be.
(є в інцому питанні на початку!) Freya Nelson (or Nielsen) was the kind
of girl one remembers. The oval of her face was perfect; and within that
fascinating frame the most happy disposition of line and feature, with an
admirable complexion, gave an impression of health, strength, and what I might
call unconscious selfconfidence - a most pleasant and, as it were, whimsical
determination.
But no one wanted to know what is hidden behind this beauty. It was the
loneliness and hopelessness.
The second female character is Antonia, Freya’s maid. She is a loyal
servant and friend to Freya but we can also see that she is lonely. She lacks
someone who loves her and we can see this in the episode when she meets the
narrator for a moment. Perhaps, looking at the happiness of her mistress, she
was feeling even more lonely but there was no one on the Seven Islands for her.
Metaphorically, just like being subordinate to Freya is mostly the reason for her
loneliness, Antonia’s interaction with the narrator is interrupted by the call of
duty to go and serve Freya. Antonia’s timid, a bit cowardly but caring and
devoted.
The third female character is Jasper’s brig “Bonita”. I personally think that
Jasper had two loves of his life - Freya and Bonita. Ships are known to be of a
female gender in English, so Bonita’s a she. And her name is translated as “the
beautiful”. And for Jasper, losing Bonita was the same as losing Freya. He cared
for it with all the gentleness and affection he was capable of.

Male characters
Freya of the Seven Islands
The first male character is Nelson. The narrator continues to call his old
acquaintance by both names—"Nelson (or Nielsen)"—throughout the novella,
and the this double moniker, marking him as somewhat English, or at least cozy
with the English (Nelson) but also somewhat Scandinavian (Nielsen), turns out
to be key to his character and the unfolding action. Nelson (or Nielsen) is
Scandinavian enough to be permitted to settle in the Dutch-controlled Seven
Isles group, but not Dutch enough to feel secure there, and is so perpetually
terrified of the Dutch "authorities" that he allows himself and his daughter Freya
to be walked all over by a petty officer named Heemskirk. He has a kind-
hearted but cowardly and people-pleasing nature. He is too blind and sure of his
daughter’s “sensibleness” to see she’s in love and to see the danger Heemskirk
was about to bring.

The second male character is Jasper Allen, a young captain and owner of
the snow-white brig "Bonito", an amazingly fast and beautiful sailboat, Freya's
secret fiance, He is Freya’s lover and he is impetuous, passionate, romantic,
driven, high-spirited, proud but not arrogant. His love for Freya blinded him so
he became overconfident, carefree and fearless.
The third male character is Heemskirk. Freya thinks of Heemskirk as
"odiously...absurd" and a "grotesquely supine creature". His ugly soul is
represented by the ugly, asymmetrical and unproportional appearances - as a
symbol of he’s being broken and vicious. His thoughts are petty, selfish and
vindictive, he’s jealous and wants to take revenge. He is disgusting and the kind
of man who wouldn’t be touched with a ten-foot pole because he takes without
asking and gets dangerous if rejected.
The fourth one would be Shulz, he is a man of the people, devoted and
sincere. The only thing that characterizes him from the bad side is his nasty
habit of robbing the holds of every ship he comes across. Besides, Schultz is a
drunkard. With the exception of this little weakness, Schultz as a sailor is better
than many who have never taken a drop of liquor in their mouths in their whole
lives, perhaps in moral terms he is not even worse than some people who have
never stolen not a penny.

ПРЯДКО 5) Narrative strategies of the works (author – narrator –

character) and their influence on the reader’s perception and response
Conrad is rightly celebrated as a writer who creates highly wrought
narratives with complex time schemes, which are often constructed to produce
amazing feats of ironic and tragic drama. The complexity is often created by
having both an inner and an outer narrator as sources of information about
events and characters, or by having the information assembled in an order
which does not follow the actual chronology of events. This can sometimes
make extra intellectual demands on the reader – but at their best they carry with
them compensating artistic effects of a high order. It is no accident that Conrad
(along with his contemporary and friend Henry James) is seen as one of the
precursors of the Modernist movement.
The interesting narrative strategy that Conrad uses in “Freya of the Seven
isles” is the story-within-a-story technique. The story is put in the contents of a
letter that a narrator receives at the beginning and as the story, a lot of events
unfold.
In the case of Freya of the Seven Isles there is a breakdown in the logic of
the narrative which results in people giving an account of events they have not
witnessed or cannot know about. The sequence or chain of knowledge is as
follows:

● The outer narrator receives a letter written to him by someone in the

Mesman office in Macassar. The letter mentions Nielsen, which prompts
the narrator’s reminiscence.
● His reminiscence becomes the principal narrative, and the narrator is a
participant in events. He is acquainted with Nielsen and Freya.
● The tale gradually turns into a narrative in third person omniscient mode.
That is, it includes the thoughts and feelings of the characters in the tale.
● When the outer narrator tows Jasper Allen out to sea in Part II, he draws
attention to the fact that it is the last time he ever sees Jasper, Nielsen,
Freya, and Heemskirk together.
 ● This point is reinforced in Part III, when the narrator points out that it is
the last time he ever sees Jasper. Yet he knows what Jasper’s secret plans
are, later in the tale.
● At the end of Part III the narrator goes back to London, yet from Part IV
onwards, the third person omniscient narrative continues. There are
scenes, thoughts, fears, and feelings which cannot have been transmitted
to the narrator – for a number of reasons:
○ there is nobody else in the scene to relay the information
○ the subject is missing ((Jasper, Heemskirk)
○ the subject is dead (Freya)

Late in the tale, Conrad seems to remember that information about events
was prompted by the letter. The narrator observes ‘All this story, read in my
friend’s very chatty letter.’ But the information in the letter could only be
related to events as seen in Macassar. His friend could not possibly know about
Freya’s thoughts and fears when being secretly spied upon by Heemskirk. (for
instance).
Nielsen visits the narrator in London to reveal the news of Freya’s death – but
he too cannot know about the thoughts and feelings of characters in scenes in
which he was not present.What you make of these weaknesses will depend upon
your levels of tolerance, but it is worth pointing to them if only because Conrad
seems to go out of his way to make his narrative logic and credibility more
complex than it needs to be. All of these events could have been conveyed in
traditional third person omniscient narrative mode.
One important reason for Joseph Conrad's fictional achievement with The
Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ is suggested by a more considerable narrative
variation, especially of perspective and distance. It presents a systematization of
the novella's narrative variations based on a commentary on the narrative
method of relevant textual passages. Novella is also important for the
development of Conrad's narrative method. In this novella perspective operates
in close contact with narrative distance. As used here, ‘distance’ indicates not
only the problematic relationship in this text between unnamed narrator and the
characters, but also the relationship between Conrad as author and the text's
combination of authorial and personal narrative.

СОЛОШИК
6) Motif of a sea voyage: test, (self-)realisation, pass to a dream, pass to
the truth comprehension (of the world, of oneself, of others) etc.
Many of Conrad’s works which use the voyage as a symbolic quest to
discover meaning echo his personal voyaging to attain philosophical
equilibrium. “Freya of the Seven Isles” that is set in the Java Sea, an area
Conrad had traversed several times as chief officer in the Vidar in late 1887, is a
good example of such a work. The sea provides a symbol for the unknown, the
limitless, the immeasurable, against which each protagonist must pit himself. In
this work the sea, beautiful and calm during the course of the story, is
indifferent to the destinies of the characters, yet the motif of sea and the motif of
a sea voyage is a vital part of this literary work. The motif of the sea journey
can be observed throughout the work. All the men of the work are somehow
connected with the sea craft. Even Freya, whose sea journeys in this literary
work were mentioned only few times, although the narrator admired her
abilities as a sailor, is tightly-connected with it.
A sea voyage has several functions in this literary work. To begin with, I
would like to talk about a sea voyage as “a test”. For Jasper, sea voyages are
obstacles he had to overcome to be with Freya. Without him making his fortune
Freya refused to marry him. It was his only way to be with Freya. Jasper’s love
of Freya is intricately bound up with his love for the brig that is to be their
home. Having Freya’s love Jasper become too careless, to self-confident, he
believes that he can handle everything. He is confident that no evil can touch
him or his brig, this is why he fails the test of the sea voyage and becomes a
broken man. He becomes estranged from the sea, unable to live up to Freya’s or
his own ideals.
A sea voyage as a self-realization. For Jasper, it is crucial to success as a
sailor. He is a simple boy, who managed to achieve a lot, yet to be with Freya
he needs to become better, he needs to have more money, to have better place to
live in. The best way to get it is a sea voyage for him. This is why he is so
crushed, when Van Heemskirt wrecks the brig in spite and revenge, using the
sea as a weapon, because all his struggles to fulfil his ambitions and to become
a man worth Freya fail. He does not understand that Freya would not care about
his failed ambitions and what she really wanted was to be with him. This is why
in his arrogant, unthinking desire to keep both ship and girl, Jasper destroys
both.
A sea voyage as a pass to a dream. For heroes of the stories a sea voyage
is a chance to achieve their dreams. Jasper is devoted to Freya; his brig the
Bonito, a “floating paradise”, is the temple which is to receive Freya and
withing which he worships her. The only way Jasper sees to get his dream,
which is being with Freya, is a sea voyage. Heemskirk has the similar goal, he
wants Freya to himself, he wants not to allow Jasper to be with Freya.
Lieutenant Heemskirk is possessed by Freya and thus he uses a sea journey as a
chance to succeed. By the sea and his Neptun he destroys Jasper’s brig and with
it he destroys Jasper’s dream world. For Nelson a sea voyage was also a way to
dream, all he wanted to live happy and calm life on an isle, we can see that he
achieves it for a time being, yet at the end he also fails. As we can see, in this
story all the people become close to achieving their goals, yet at the end they
never succeeded.
A sea voyage is a pass to the truth comprehension. In story we can see
that a sea voyage was also a pass to understanding oneself, the world and others.
Man desires to find meaning in the mirror of the sea , to order his universe,
however, the real sea, under the pretty pictures imaged upon it, contains
dangerous shallow waters. The man who does not see and cannot imagine the
reef, because his mythology does not equip him to deal with evil and chaos, will
find himself, like Jasper, “disarmed for life”, with a “dagger in his breasts”. As
we can see Jasper underestimated the sea and overestimated himself, his world-
view was inadequate and in the end he gained truth comprehension.
As to Freya, the girl underestimated her influence and her power over all
men in the story. She is not aware of the consequences of her actions, thus when
enraged because of his jealousy Heemskirk destroys her and Jasper’s dream, she
finally understands what tragedy it can lead to.
As for Nelson, a sea voyage gives him an ability to understand his place in
the story, his contribution to it, and to understand people around him as well as
himself. Yet at the end of the story we see that he gives up this possibility to
understand it.

СУДОМА+ЦИГУЛЯ
7) Themes, symbols, motifs, allusions (in Freya of the Seven Isles:
Scandinavian goddess Freya, brig “The Bonito”, animals, rifles… and any
others in the short stories)
MAINLY OTSEBIATINA (я придумую на ходу)
Allusions:
Scandinavian goddess Freya
Freya is an old Norse word for “lady” and was the name given to the Norse
goddess of love. Whilst she certainly sought out passion and pleasure, she was a
complex character. In fact, to the Vikings she was a powerful force, a goddess
on par with Odin and Thor within the legends of Norse mythology. Because of
her links to the very beginnings of life, she probably played an important role in
early Scandinavian religion. Freya was also associated with witchcraft and some
myths record her teaching the practice to the Norse Aesir gods.
 I believe that it’s a very vivid allusion because in Scandinavian mythology
she had a chariot with cats which was a very important and distinct attribute of
Freya, and in Conrad's novella brig was about to become her means of living
and traveling, and if it happened so, it would also be the main association with
her. What’s more, I view Freya of Seven Isles as the goddess of Seven Isles and
the goddess of love, as well. It’s all because she was known among Isles’
residents for her beauty and he had few suitors. Jasper was besotted by her and
he considered Freya to be his goddess, “The Bonito” - their “paradise” and he
was ready to worship her every second of their meetings. And I also think that
the depiction of “The Bonito” as the perfect, repaired, shining brig shows us
that it looks like heaven for two young people (from Spanish ¨beautiful¨). Freya
is the goddess who owns the brig, that’s why Jasper is sure that nothing evil can
touch it. And the fact that Freya was born on the ship during the sea voyage and
that from early childhood she drew people’s attention and love tells us that she
was born goddess of sea and love.
In Scandinavian mythology Freya was also the goddess of war and death.
In Conrad's novella Freya is warrior-like. She is brave and she’s sometimes
reckless when she’s under the influence of her emotions. She’s not afraid of
defending herself and her love, she stands up for people she cares about (the
moment when she avenged Heemskirk for Antonia), she’s confident and sober-
minded. And as Freya from Scandinavian mythology, when love, kindness and
negotiations don’t help, she uses other methods while fighting.
Freya from 7 Isles is just like Norse Freya because no man can tame and
own her, even though men are enchanted by her.
Three characters who want to move in different directions and the
story has a sad ending.
We often observe such a thing in fables when there are 3 characters who
show different attitudes to the same situation. In Freya of Seven Isles these are
Jasper, Nelson and Heemskirk because these are completely different characters
and three of them see and treat Freya differently. And at the end of the day the
narrator himself says that Freya died because of three of them.
Motif of disgust:
Disgust is mentioned twice in Freya of the Seven Isles, and in both cases
it's used to underline the mutual aversion felt between the Dutch and English
traders. This is very much a disgust marking the boundaries of "us versus them."
In the first instance, the narrator is speaking about the Dutch attitude toward
Freya's lover Jasper:
“They considered him much too enterprising in his trading. I don't know
that he ever did anything illegal, but it seems to me that his immense activity
was repulsive to their stolid character and slow-going methods.”
The narrator's own lightness in this paragraph perhaps mimics Jasper's own
lack of seriousness around Heemskirk and the Dutch in general, while at the
same time foreshadowing the tale's tragic end. In any case, the reader is
certainly not supposed to share the Dutch disgust for Jasper. The boy may be a
little foolish, but he's essentially a sympathetic, if doomed, character. Thus the
Dutch revulsion against him makes them less sympathetic generally, or at least
signals a tragic lack of understanding between the two parties.
In the second instance, Freya thinks of Heemskirk as "odiously...absurd"
and a "grotesquely supine creature" as he sits sulking that she prefers Jasper,
and she avoids going to talk with him, instead sitting down at the piano to play.
Here the reader is meant to share her revulsion, especially since we have seen
his thoughts and they are petty, selfish and vindictive. Disgust here marks true
moral flaws in the person eliciting the disgust, reflecting our own opinion of
Heemskirk and confirming Freya as a good judge of character. Given the
passage quoted above, it's probably not irrelevant that Heemskirk is Dutch and
dark-complected (that is, in opposition to the fair-haired, attractive English
characters who would otherwise find happiness on the island). Conrad isn't
above a bit of jingoism (infamously). Still, he makes Heemskirk a sufficiently
loathsome and petty little man in his own right that I felt justified in sharing
Freya's view. At the same time, her disgust in this scene prevents her from
sweet-talking Heemskirk out of his funk, which might potentially have saved
the entire progression of events from veering out of control.
Wagnerian music. Wagnerian music in “Freya of the seven isles” functions
like a strengthening for some tense moments. For example, when the storm hit,
Freya always played his fierce music on the piano, while thunder and flashes of
lightning were falling all round. When readers imagine this scene, it looks really
epic and does make your hair stand on end.
Themes
Theme of voyage
Theme of voyage was very common in Conrad’s works because it
symbolizes the search for meaning in life. Conrad believed that we have to
discover and believe in mysterious and incredible things to find the meaning in
a meaningless world, and that our life is a constant spiritual journey. In Freya of
Seven Isles, voyage plays an important role because it’s always something that
can ruin the love of Freya and Jasper, which actually happens in the end.
Theme of vengeance
Theme of vengeance is one of the most vivid ones because the ending the story
has is because of the vengeance that captivated the soul of Heemskirk after
being hit by the woman. However, everything begins with Freya’s revenge for
Antonia and for herself because Heemskirk was about to sexually assault Freya.
She slaps him in the face and refuses to help her father take care of Heemskirk.
Then, when she knew that Heemskirk was watching her, she was doing
everything to show her love and passion towards Jasper and annoy Heemskirk
even more. Here we can see that little vengeance gives impetus to a bigger one.
Theme of madness
Personally I believe that everyone, except for Heemskirk and old Nilsen,
becomes insane at the end of the novella. Schultz commits suicide after feeling
guilty for a really long time; Jasper, experiencing terrible trauma after brig’s
crush, spend all his time looking at the brig; Freya falls ill and constantly talks
about the brig, Jasper and this situation, and dies not only from pneumonia, but
also from deep sadness and guilt.
Theme of obsession
Each character of this story is obsessed with somebody or something. Jasper is
obsessed with The Bonito and Freya and sometimes it looks like he cannot
distinguish them.
Heemskirk is obsessed with the idea of owning and taming Freya, he wants to
make her belong to him and thus to claim his power over Freya and her father.
Nilsen is obsessed with his land and house, thinking that everything is under his
control. This obsession makes him blind to such an extent that he can’t see very
obvious things.
Freya is obsessed with the idea of owning The Bonito and being free and
independent.
Theme of cowardness
Theme of cowardness is also a very vivid one in “Freya of Seven Isles”.
Without any doubts, the most coward character of this novella is Nilsen. He
wants to live a peaceful and happy life. Freya also tends to be coward and
cautious. At first, she’s afraid to live the way she wants to. Then, she doesn’t
want to have a conflict with Heemskirk and stays silent about his threats and
inappropriate actions towards her.
Symbols
Brig. Brig is one of the most important elements in the novella. In my opinion,
without it, the plot would be different, so undoubtedly it drives it. As to what
brig symbolises, I believe it embodies and maintains the relationship of Jasper
and Freya. Because as we get from the text, Freya constantly says that she loves
the brig, and Jasper can’t live without it as well. Thus, it mainly symbolyses
Jasper’s soul, his passion, his sense of life, his dreams to live and travel with
Freya. As we see, when the brig crashes, Jasper just loses his whole life, he
becomes mad, loses his mind, and even becomes somewhat angry with Freya,
saying that she just made a happy child of him, not a man. And when his brig
perished on the reef, he realized that he had no power over Freya. So, their love
at this point becomes questionable.
Rifles. In my opinion, rifles symbolise honesty, dignity and first of all
repentance (каяття) of Schultz. Yes, he was a thief. But at the beginning of the
novella Jasper said that his brig will serve as a means of improvement for him.
He will not have a chance for drinking or stealing there. But he does, he steals
and sells these rifles, and then when he thinks that they will die, he decides to
tell Jasper about it. So he starts confessing and repeating that I stole them, only I
did this and so on, but nobody believes him and Jasper, too. Because he thought
Schultz just had fever. But that was true. And rifles were like Schultz’s last
chance for redemption and proving that he IS an honest man. When he did this
self-sacrifice, he cut his throat.
Sea. Sea is always the symbol of something undiscovered and hidden, and it’s
also a part of the journey of many literature characters. In “Freya of Seven
Isles” the sea plays an important role because the lives of all the characters are
connected to it. What’s interesting, that despite all the bad events in the novella,
we can see that the sea is always calm and it doesn’t depict the events in the
text. In many literary texts the sea is the complication for characters, it’s
something that puts them through many challenges. However, here it’s just the
‘ground’ of the story.

ШЕВЧУК 8) Post-modern reception of and readers’ response to the work.

In the realities of the 21st century, Conrad's work acquires new meanings,
which are grounded in a different ethic and perception of the individual beyond
the framework of race, nationality and other cultural characteristics.
In the story his propensity for exploring a vast cross-section of humanity
becomes evident. It reflects the backdrop against which his portraits emerge - a
backdrop which is a composite of the hostile, the mysterious and the unknown
in a universe subtended only by the sky, the sea and the sun. Conrad's fictional
world is not homogenous, but an area of overlapping cultures - Christian,
English, Dutch, Chinese and Malay. It is from this vast expanse that Conrad
draws his protagonists who represent humanity in its multitudinous variety.
Every character is seen as a relation of the nationality and their personalities
constructed on the basis of international conflicts and preferences.
Anyone intent on cataloging imagery and diction that might reflect the
author's obsession with otherness would find ample verification in the shorter
fiction. In other words, it would be a relatively simple matter to find evidence of
Conrad's "racism". A plausible argument could be advanced that the writer was
no different from his fellow European compatriots in Poland, France and
England, who fell under the sway of popularist Darwinism. In this context, it
was extremely convenient for colonists not to have to regard other races as
being of the same species, and thus to allow them only certain inferior status
and employment. For example, old Nelson, who is "one of us" in the story
"Freya of the Seven Isles", would not hurt the "feelings even of a mop-headed
cannibal"
Conrad's juxtaposition of racial attitudes, of "us" and "Others", in his
fiction, constantly interrogates and exposes the contradictions and conflicts at
the heart of colonial discourse.
Racist discourse extends to the perceived notions of difference between
Europeans of different nationalities. "Freya of the Seven Isles" for example,
enacts the tragic love story of Freya and Jasper, an Englishman who becomes
the victim of the rabid xenophobia of the despicable and disgusting Dutch
lieutenant, Heemskirk.
READERS' RESPONSE
Analyzing online reader reviews of this book, I concluded that most
people rated it 3 out of 5 stars:*comments from goodread:
“I didn't find it boring, not very interesting either, it's a bit of a drama,
you could make a soap opera out of it. Or a rom-com, it's not very sad, not very
funny, it's something. I don't recommend reading or not reading it... The choice
is up to you.”
“It was 'more of the same' type of sailing novella, with common
characters sharing a common story. Funnily enough I expected more action; at
some point it seems that something big will happen but then the story dies. The
only character that seems to keep true to himself is Allen. Heemskirk and Freya
take a weird turn of choices and it all seems to crumble.

I didn't dislike the novella, but I wouldn't recommend it to someone who

has never read Conrad before. Definitely not one of his best works.”
We can conclude that the plot is not really unique in Conrad's fiction.
readers choose this book to pass the time and feel the tragic ending, but the
uneven narrator, the abrupt change in characters, and the sudden ending do
impair the overall reader's perception of the story.

Literary sources (in Ukrainian only)

Бредбері М. Британський роман нового часу. – К. : Ксенія Сладкевич,
2011. – С. 61-67; 100-110.
Жлуктенко Н.Ю. Английский психологический роман ХХ в. – К. :
Вища школа, 1987. – С.17-39.

https://culture.pl/en/article/11-reasons-to-think-of-joseph-conrad-as-a-
polish-writer-after-all