‘Actions speak at an early age’ and this was true of Joseph Conrad. He was born on December 3, 1857 in erstwhile Russia, which is now part of Poland. His real name was Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski. He was the only child of Apollo and Ewa Korzeniowski, both active in the Polish nationalist movement in the mid-19th century.
His father, Apollo Nalecz Korzeniowski, was a man of letters (a poet) and an ardent Polish patriot. He was one of the organizers of the committee that went on to direct the Polish insurrection against the Russian rule. He was, therefore, arrested in May 1862 and sent into exile at Volgoda in northern Russia. This exile gave rise to many family problems : four-year-old Conrad suffered from pneumonia and on the way to Volgoda, Ewa died of tuberculosis in 1865.
Apollo was allowed to leave Volgoda and moved at few places before finally settling down at Cracow. After the death of Ewa, Conrad’s father played the role of mother too. Conrad was largely tutored at home in Polish and French.
Conrad had his first introduction to English language at the age of eight when his father was translating the works of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo. He was a bright child; he grasped everything at an early age. During the solitary years with his father, he read the works of Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, William Mackpeace Thackeray and James Fenimore Copper. In 1869, Apollo also suffered from tuberculosis and died at Cracow. Conrad was then just 11.
In 1915, he wrote about death having seen the untimely demise of his parents at an early age. "I looked forward to what was coming with an incredulous terror. I turned my eyes from it sometimes with success, and yet all the time I had an awful sensation of the inevitable.
I also had moments of revolt which stripped off me some of my simple trust in the government of the universe." (Notes in Life and Letters, pg. 168)
He remained sick as a child and suffered from migraines and lung inflammation for the rest of his life. He was physically unattractive : a short man with sharp Slavic face accentuated with a beard. He lived an aristocratic life.
His Uncle Shouldered the Responsibility
Tadeusz Bobrowsky, maternal uncle of Conrad who was a lawyer, took up the responsibility of young Conrad. He provided his nephew with advice, admonition, financial support and love. Conrad was sent to school at Cracow and then to Switzerland, but didn’t find it interesting and yearned to go to sea. He spent four years in the French Merchant Marine, during which he sailed to several places including the West Indies, Venezuela and Spain. He was deeply involved in the social life of Marseilles and got into a deep gambling debt. Once when he ran short of money, he invited a creditor for tea to show his disability. As the creditor approached, Conrad shot at himself on the chest. His caretaker sent a message to Tadeusz Bobrowski demanding money for his wounded nephew. Bobrowski rushed immediately and found his nephew, not in a critical condition, but under heavy debt.
In May 1873, Conrad sailed for Italy. He had the first view of sea and developed a passion for sailing. In October 1874, he set off for France to attend a maritime school in Marseilles. He received an annual allowance of 2,000 francs, which Conrad used and lost at the gambling tables in Monte Carlo. Whatever money he received, did not suffice. During his French service, he used to sail in the ships of a merchant called Delestang. His first voyage was from Mont-Blanc to Martinique. During his second voyage, he went as an apprentice.
Involved in Unlawful Acts
During his three years as an apprentice seaman and steward, most of the time, he was on board voyaging to the West Indies. But the great writer was reportedly involved in smuggling, delivering arms to right-wing rebels in Columbia. Conrad may also have been involved in the smuggling operations in Spain in support of the right-wing Carlists, who attempted to re-establish the monarchy. As a writer, Conrad portrayed all men to a large extent whom he met during his early adventures.
In 1876, he sailed to West Indies as a steward on Saint Antoine. On his way to Venezuela, he was suspected of having committed unlawful acts. Glimpses of his acts, like gunrunning, are found in Nostromo. The first mate of the vessel, a Corsican named Dominic Cervoni, was the model for the hero of that novel and played a picturesque role in Conrad’s life and works.
His Second Success
Recovering from his wound, he signed with an English ship Mavis, bound for Constantinople with a cargo. He remained in England for some time and later voyaged as an ordinary seaman on a wool clipper on the London–Sydney run. In June 1880, he passed his examination as second mate, and in April 1881, joined the Palestine.
In 1883, he worked as mate on the Riversdale to join the Narcissus on sail from Mumbai to Dunkirk. This voyage provided him material for his novel The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’. It is a story of an egocentric black sailor’s deterioration and death on board. In August 1886, he became a British subject and after three more months obtained a master mariner’s certificate. Known as Polish Joe, he became a British citizen in 1886 and changed his name to Joseph Conrad.
Raw Material for His Novels
In February 1887, he sailed as first mate on the Highland Forest bound to Semarang, Java with Captain John McWhirr, whom he later immortalized in the captain of the steamer Nan Shan in Typhoon. He then joined the Vidar, a steamship trading among the islands of the southeast Asian archipelago. Out of his six voyages that he made in four-and-a-half months, Conrad discovered the world, which he later recreated in his novels Almayer’s Folly, An Outcast of the Islands, Lord Jim and several short stories.
Passed Through a Bad Phase
After teaming on Vidar, he obtained his first command on the Otago, sailing from Bangkok. From these experiences, he developed two write-ups, The Shadow Line (1916) and Falk (1903). He took over Otago in unfavorable circumstances : the captain of his ship died in mid-sea, and the crew traveled 800 miles in three weeks. Conrad as well as the cook had fever but he found to his dismay that the captain had sold almost all the ship’s supply of quinine.
After 1878, he spent 16 years in the British merchant navy. His experiences as a sailor greatly influenced his writings. English became his ‘third language’, which he used for writing. He loved travelling and traveled extensively, in Asia and the South Pacific region.
A Dream Turned Reality
He made a series of eastern voyages for three continuous years, during which he developed a severe back pain from which he could never completely recover. Conrad remained at the English port of Mauritius for two months, where he unsuccessfully courted two women. Frustrated, he left Mauritius and returned to England for a long time. By the summer of 1889, he wrote his first novel Almayer’s Folly based on his adventures. Though it was well received, the sale of the novel was poor.
But he thought of fulfilling his dreams. Since childhood in Poland, he had dreamt of going to Africa. As a child, while looking at the map of Africa, he had exclaimed : "When I grow up I shall go there." Since childhood he had dreamt of commanding a Congo River steamboat. He achieved both the dreams soon – he visited Africa and also commanded a steamboat in the Congo river. Yet, he was not an ideal sailor as he often argued with his captains and never worked up to the mark. This could be due to frequent health hazards and bouts of depression.
Late, But Happy Marriage
After achieving success, marriage issue came to his mind. Conrad, short and thin but not very handsome, came in contact of a young and beautiful girl. He proposed to her on the steps of National Gallery, London. Both were married at the registry office in Hanover Square. Conrad was then 37, and Jessie George, his wife, was a typist, from Peckham where she stayed with her widowed mother. Some people thought that Conrad had married Jessie because he needed some one to type his manuscripts and also one who could understand his particular tantrums.
Thereafter, he resided mainly in the southeast corner of England. But his life, as an author was plagued by hardship – financial, health-wise plus difficulties arising out of his unpredictable temperament. So when Conrad was not on a ship, he explored other means of making money.
Getting Settled
On his return to England after one of his voyages, he witnessed the death of his guardian uncle. His uncle had left a property for Conrad, which provided him financial security. He could settle as a writer. Conrad came closer to Marguerite, a family friend. In 1894, he met Edward Garnett who became his lifelong companion. Conrad was very affable. Later his circle of friends included Stephen Crane and Henry James. In 1898, he moved to Pent Farm in Kent in order to escape from debtors and his agent James Pinker. He rented a brick cottage from a young writer named Hueffer who was later known as Ford Madox Ford.
Met A Writer Friend – Ford
By 1898, when Conrad was 41 and Ford 24, both were well known for their writings. Conrad for Almayer’s Folly (1895), An Outcast of the Islands (1896), The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897), and Tales of Unrest (1898) and Ford published children’s stories The Brown Owl (1891), The Feather (1892), a novel called The Shifting of the Fire (1892), a collection of poems in 1893, and a biography of his grandfather, Ford Madox Brown (1896). At Kent, Conrad and Ford collaborated and wrote three novels – The Inheritors (1901), Romance (1903) and The Nature of A Crime (1909).
Ford – His Co-author
Fans of Conrad often called Ford a liar, moving friskily on the margins of their hero’s career and telling childish tales. In the same way, fans of Ford considered Conrad a cold-hearted person and a manipulator enjoying Ford’s hospitality, his money and relations. Though both worked together for about seven years, they did not produce any great work. Both were said to be neurotics and this is often evident in their work.
Both Had Their Motifs
Ford had an unpublished novel Seraphina and wanted Conrad’s support. Critics including Ian Watt denied that Conrad ever had any theory of novel writing. But even a cursory reading of the preface to his works can convince that Conrad had a basic theory and at the root was a concern for the epistemological position of the author and the narrative implied. Ford also had epistemological problems of novel writing. In 1924, Ford came up with Joseph Conrad : A Personal Remembrance, where one can find documentary evidence of a series of discussions and experiments they shared.
Met Other Writers
Meanwhile, Conrad came in contact with great writers Stephen Crane, Henry James and H G Wells. He was also lucky to have two literary friends, George Bernard Shaw and John Galsworthy who helped him by providing loans and also recommended him to the publishers and critics to further his literary career.
Literature could not provide adequate monetary gains to Conrad. His success was not enough to buy him financial stability. Though by 1900, he had become quite famous, he was facing severe financial crisis. After the birth of his first son in 1898 and the second in 1906, his poverty-stricken life became more acute.
Never Ran after Glory
At the age of 36, Conrad tried to settle in England. He was an anglophile who thought Britain respected individual liberty. The later years of his life were shadowed by rheumatism. He had declined honorary degrees from five universities. Later he also refused the knighthood in 1924 offered by British government. He preferred literary honor instead of a national honor of knighthood. On August 3, 1924, he died of heart attack and was buried in Canterbury.
Conrad influenced many 20th century writers. Ernest Hemingway, TS Eliot, Graham Greene, F Scott Fitzgerald, Arthur Koestler, Andre Malraux, Marcel Proust, Ferdinand Celine and Jean–Paul Sartre are few of them.
Received Recognition Late In Life
By 1895, Conrad had given up the idea of living the life of a sailor while pursuing a career in writing. Though he was very slow at writing, his necessity for money compelled him to be a writer. But his writings were often inconsistent. At times, he suffered from nervous breakdowns and abandoned writing for a long time. In 1910, an American collector who purchased his manuscripts offered him a small pension. In 1913, Chance became his first bestseller. His financial condition improved after this success.
During his later years, he went to Poland and then to America, where he spent the rest of his life. In 1924, at the age of 67, he died of a heart attack.
Conrad’s major works are Lord Jim, Youth and the Heart of Darkness. Lord Jim was planned as a short story but was later elongated to a novel. The earlier part of the novel is based on a British captain and his crew who abandon a sinking steamship, Jeddah carrying Muslim pilgrims. Jeddah was then safely brought to port with the help of another steamship. A P Williams, the first mate, was blamed for deserting the vessel. The novel talks of a British naval officer, haunted by cowardice having left his ship Patna in a storm. While moving towards Mecca, the ship strikes a submerged object. When the crew lowers a lifeboat, Jim jumps in it and has to face a Court of Inquiry. He strikes a deal with chief Doramin and comes out "non-guilty".
When Gentleman Brown and his fellow European adventurers appear, Jim promises Doramin that Brown and his men would leave the island without any bloodshed. But, he cannot keep his word. Doramin’s son is killed and Jim allows himself to be shot at by a grief-stricken Doramin. Ultimately, Jim comes out to be an obscure conqueror of fame.
In Youth, there is a narration by Marlow who describes his journey to Africa. Here, he becomes curious about a man called Kurtz. Working with an ivory company, he observes the suffering of poor native workers. Kurtz is an agent, whom Marlow considers as an apostle of Western altruism, but in realty, finds a person who has lionized himself and decorated the posts of his hut with human skulls.
The Heart of Darkness is based on a four-month command of a Congo river steamboat. Through Charatey Marlow, Conrad lives his childhood dream of penetrating into the heart of the continent. Even in Youth, he uses the name ‘Marlow’ for his character, though there is no continuous storyline in it. It is a third person narrative. The narrator Marlow talks about his journey to Africa to his friends. Here, he becomes interested in the life of Kurtz. Marlow works for an ivory company where he notices the sufferings of the native workers. He goes to meet Kurtz. Marlow tries to take Kurtz down the river but Kurtz dies saying "The Horror, The Horror !" Marlow consoles Kurtz’s fiancée by telling her that the last word Kurtz uttered was her name.
JOSEPH CONRAD <1857-1924 >
A house having four walls on the East, West, North and South but no roof and yet the dwellers protect themselves from sun, rain, wind and all that nature throws over. Joseph Conrad was such an unlucky fellow with strong pillars of uncle and friends having lost his parents when he was quite young. He was brave and developed an aptitude to get the best out of his life.
Till the age of eight, this Russian – Polish child didn’t know English but later enriched English literature. Joseph Conrad, one of the greatest fiction writers of English literature, spoke four languages – Russian, Polish, French and English.
During his life, he had neurotic attacks and showed suicidal tendencies. His life as a mariner offered him a unique opportunity to observe human nature, which is greatly reflected in his work. His writings are admired for the richness of prose and also the insight into the human psyche; how a person faces extraordinary situations. Though most of his writings are considered fictitious, there is an underlying autobiographical current.
CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS
• 1889
Conrad resigned from Otago to return to London, where he began writing Almayer’s Folly.
• 1890
Conrad, desperate for command, took a mate’s position on a river steamer for the Societe Anonyme pour le Commerce du Haut-Congo, the experience vividly reflected in Conrad’s Congo Journal and eventually in Heart of Darkness.
• 1896
Outcast of the Islands published. Conrad met H G Wells. On March 24, he married Jessie George and began writing The Rescue.
• 1897
Published The Nigger of the Narcissus. He became acquainted with American novelist Henry James and R B Cunninghame Graham and on him based the character of Gould in Nostromo.
• 1898
Published a volume of short stories Tales of Unrest, collection of previously published short stories. Conrad collaborated with Ford Madox Ford (Hueffer) and met American journalist Stephen Crane.
• 1898-99
Heart of Darkness ran serially in Blackwood’s Edinburgh magazine, which Conrad called as Maga.
• 1899-1900
Lord Jim ran serially in Maga.
• 1902
Youth and Other Stories were published.
• 1906
Conrad published autobiography Mirror of the Sea.
• 1907
Conrad published The Secret Agent.
• 1908
The short story collection, A Set of Six, was published.
• 1911
Under Western Eyes was published.
• 1912
Autobiographical book A Personal Record and short story collection, Twixt Land and Sea, was published.
• 1913
Conrad’s first great critical and popular success, Chance, was published.
• 1915
Conrad published Within the Tides, containing the potboiler The Inn of the Two Witches and Victory were published.
• 1919
Arrow of Gold was published.
• 1920
The Rescue was completed and published 24 years after Conrad started it.
• 1921
Conrad visited Corsica to research Suspense. His Notes on Life and Letters was published.
• 1923
Visited America, Conrad was lionized. The Rover was published.
• 1924
Posthumously, The Nature of Crime written in collaboration with Ford was published.
CHRONOLOGY OF LIFE
• December 3, 1857
Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski born to Polish aristocratic parents in the Russia occupied Poland.
• 1861
Conrad’s father, poet and translator Apollo Korzeniowski, arrested for patriotic conspiracy.
• 1862
Conrad’s parents sent to exile by the Russian authorities to Volgoda, Siberia.
• 1865
Conrad’s mother dies in bleak climate.
• 1869
after the death of his father, Apollo Korzeniowski, in Cracow, Poland, Conrad was taken under the protection of his maternal uncle, Tadeusz Bobrowski.
• 1874
Conrad left his native Poland to avoid Russian conspiracy. In Marseilles, he became a trainee seaman with the French Merchant Marine.
• 1877
Conrad involved in smuggling arms to the Spanish rebels from Marseilles.
• March, 1878
Conrad attempted suicide; shot at himself in the chest but recovered. His uncle cleared Conrad’s gambling debts.
• April, 1878
Conrad, having lost his French mariner’s ticket, joined first British-registered ship Mavis.
• 1883
Transferred to ‘The Skimmer of the Sea’.
• 1886
Conrad became a British subject. Passed the exam for British merchant navy Master’s certificate.
• 1887-88
As the first officer on Vidar, Conrad visited numerous ports in the Malay Archipelago.
• 1895
He married Jesse George.
• 1898
His Kent farmhouse was on lease. First son Borys was born.
• 1906
Conrad’s second son, John, was born.
• 1910
Suffered from a nervous breakdown.
• May, 1924
Conrad declined an offer of knighthood.
• August 3, 1924
Conrad died of heart attack.
His Personality Reflecting in His Works
Conrad had a dual personality. He thought himself to be a Polish gentleman cased in British tar, but his wife and close friends experienced a different personality. He was often moody, eccentric, neurotic and frequently showed suicidal tendencies. For many acquaintances, Conrad seemed to be energetic and steadfast, a lover of vast oceans who proved his talent by qualifying as a British master mariner.
In September 1881, Conrad started from London as second mate on the Palestine, a ship of 425 tons scheduled to collect cargo of coal at Newcastle to be transported to Bangkok. In his novel – Youth the name Palestine was changed to Judea, but the names of the Captain Beard, and the mate, Mahon remain unaltered.
Fluctuation at Several Levels
In 1890, at the age of 32, Conrad was engaged by the Belgian Society Anonyme of Commerce at Hautcongo to take command of one of the company’s steamers at Congo. In the manuscript of Heart of Darkness, Conrad started by naming Klein but then changed the name to Keertz. After this trip Conrad suffered more frustration and had fever and dysentery. Disgusted, he returned to England in December in 1890. His other works are Lord Jim and Nostromo, which were initially not well accepted by readers.
He wrote several novels – Youth, Heart of Darkness and The End of the Tether – which exposes his dual personality. Youth is an autobiographical account of his own first exhilarating journey to the East. He exudes confidence, while the atmosphere of The End of the Tether is quite the opposite.
The old captain compromises his integrity for the sake of his daughter. Both the narratives reveal Conrad’s greatness as a storyteller.
In his Heart of Darkness, we enter another dimension of aesthetics. This masterpiece is often compared to the amazing modern novels such as Death in Venice by Thomas Mann or The Trial by Kafka, which throw light on the nature of 20th century art, its problems and achievements. Through Heart of Darkness, a dual aspect of Conrad’s temperament has been fully expressed. The seaman’s code of discipline and work comes into conflict with the dark secrets of imagination. The result is a great parable concerning, among other things, the role of the artist in modern times.
Conventional Writer
Conrad, in his initial work, Almayer’s Folly (1895), An Outcast of the Islands (1896) and The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897), narrates the story in a conventional manner, as if he were the omniscient author in charge of the plot. Due to his temperamental nature, this method did not satisfy him. He tried to suggest his uncertainties about the meaning of events, his own deep-rooted scepticism and his belief that illusion and reality are inextricably intertwined.
Youth was first published in Blackwood’s Magazine in September 1898. Conrad had been frustrated by his inability to make progress with his ambitious novel, The Rescue and the writing of Youth must have seemed an easier and more pleasant task. In Youth, Marlow looks back nostalgically at the passionate enthusiasm of his youth, recognizing both its unworldly attitude and honesty. This indirect method of narration brought him from the important state into which he had been before The Rescue, which was to be presented into an orthodox straightforward manner.
In Youth, as in Heart of Darkness, the hero is engaged in a voyage of self-discovery. The youth asserts his manhood by the strength of his will, his fortitude in calamity and his unending vitality. The older Marlow feels he has somehow become smaller and diminished, compared to the dynamic exuberance of his lost self. His memory wanders across time, grieving for the departed energy, stoically conscious of the gains in common sense and wisdom.
Narration with Deep Meanings
Youth and Heart of Darkness are romantic stories as Wordsworth’s Prelude or D H Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. Conrad once declared that the purpose of his writing was to present the truth. Heart of Darkness includes a famous description of the method of narration adopted by Conrad in his greatest works. The Nigger of the Narcissus has black men as characters, which are symbols of loneliness, racial discrimination, darkness etc. This novel is praised for its realistic focus and consequent details.
Fiction Characters
The next novel where he used the first person narrative is Youth and there is a talkative narrator Captain Marlow. This novel holds on with a humorous situation that takes place on the ship Judea. In Heart of Darkness, Marlow is not satisfied with work ethics. He admits that keeping the steamboat afloat, prevented him from responding properly to another side of reality, the strange world of plants, water and silence. He states : "When you have to attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality – the reality, I tell you – fades. The inner truth is hidden – but I felt it all the same…"
In the novel, Marlow acts as a mirror to events, but what he reflects does not emerge as a rationally consistent view. Marlow needs to tell his own story as conflicts remain unresolved. Kurtz and the wilderness disturb his imagination. Marlow is sent on a journey up the Congo River to relieve an ivory trader, Kurtz.
The story is built around opposition and tension, between the values of work and fascination for wilderness. The natives enjoy degraded rites and worship Kurtz as god, while Marlow respects cannibals as men one could work with. Heart of Darkness is a fictionalized account of Conrad’s trip to Congo in 1890. Marlow knew Kurtz prior to his journey as the trader. He is thought to be a great civilizing influence in a dark Africa.
At many points, Marlow is confronted in his journey by evil and dehumanizing effects of colonialism. In the story, a French soldier fires indiscriminately at natives in the bush and the black workers are left to die by their white masters.
The End of Tether is a forceful narrative, and its main character, Captain Whalley, has a tragic identity. Daredevil Whalley has been the most successful seaman, who never lost a ship or consented to a shady transaction. As Captain Beard in Youth, his character shows a little boy’s innocence. Even in old age, his sturdy form reflects an unquenchable vitality and vigor.
In Youth, he repeatedly suggests that the old world of heroic endeavor has been replaced by a debased and corrupt materialism. Captain Eliott, his old comrade, now wheezy and waddling, dare not invite him home fearing his wife.
As he walks through the Eastern port after selling his ship, The Fair Maid, to provide money for his dear daughter, Whalley seems a remnant from a lost paradise.
The background of land and sea reflects this changed world, and appears as a product of the morbid side of Conrad’s temperament. In the beginning of Sofala, approaches a low, swampy coast and a mere smudge of darkness. The coast is without a single feature to arrest attention. Palm trees, by which they steer have disheveled heads. The ship passes through a river of brown liquid, which has three parts of black earth and one part of brackish water. The darkness of the primeval forest flows into the cabins with the odour of rotting leaves and sodden soil.
In terms of story, it is a reality and Whalley discovers that he also can be carried away by corruption. He wanted to fulfill his daughter’s wishes and therefore makes a bargain with Massy, a vendor, who supplies them daily provisions. He has never allowed anybody before to remain under any false impression, but allows Massy to think that he is a rich man. As he walks from the quay, the bargain snaps and he shivers into the darkness. He feels that he is corrupt to the marrow of his bones. The Christian Knight finds his ideals unsuited to the demands of the new world.
In 1890, Conrad arrived in Africa having traveled from Bordeaux to Boma at the mouth of Congo. Travelling upfront by steamer to the company station at Matadi, he meets Roger Casement, an Irishman who tells him stories of how badly Africans were treated by the white men. Casement’s investigations help in stamping out exploitation and colonialism in Congo and forces King Leopold of Belgium to surrender.
From Matadi to the central station at Kinchassa, where the vessel has been stopped, is a long journey of 36 days. Conrad saw some of the most shocking examples of corruption he had ever witnessed. The ill treatment of the natives, the scramble for loot, the terrible heat and the lack of water disgusted him. It was so dirty that there were mosquitoes everywhere. He saw human skeletons left to rot.
He finally arrived at Kinchassa to find his ship damaged and he had to go to Stanley Falls on the Roi des Belges. On the route, they pick up a company agent Klein, who later dies of dysentery on board while returning from a trip. Later, Conrad fell ill and, therefore, had to terminate his contract after few months. This illness stayed with him forever and he never recovered completely from it.
Experience on His Trip to Asia
Lord Jim, published in 1900 announced the new century and its ambiguous, anti-heroic depths. The novel continues Conrad’s pursuit of exposing the romantic idealism. The first part of the novel takes place aboard Patna, a ship ferrying Muslim pilgrims. Struck by the floating wreckage of another ship, Patna begins to sink. Lord Jim, all officers and the crew on board panic. They abandon the ship, leaving the pilgrims to their fate. But the ship does not sink. When it is towed into port, Jim and other officers stand as cowards.
Lord Jim is considered to be Conrad’s greatest novel and is favorably compared with the best that Western literature offers. This immortal piece of literature is highlighted even today among all the other works. Though it is criticized as a racist novel for Conrad’s continual identification of people of color with the darker forces of chaos. Some critics consider him to be ahead of times because of calling attention to the savages caused by colonialism.
The latter part of Lord Jim takes place in a jungle because Conrad was interested in Jim’s feelings of guilt, and insecurity, which are commonly seen in mankind.
• You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends.
• Going home must be like going to render an account.
• A man’s most open actions have a secret side to them.
• Criticism, that fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters.
• An artist is a man of action, whether he creates a personality, invents an expedient, or finds the issue of a complicated situation.
• In order to move others deeply we must deliberately allow ourselves to be carried away beyond the bounds of our normal sensibility.
• Only in men’s imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.
• I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable grayness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat.
• As to honor – you know -- it’s a very fine mediaeval inheritance, which women never got hold of. It wasn’t theirs.
• To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.
• A man is a worker. If he is not that he is nothing.
• Some great men owe most of their greatness to the ability of detecting in those they destine for their tools the exact quality of strength that matters for their work.
• Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love -- and to put its trust in life.
• I dare say I am compelled, unconsciously compelled, now to write volume after volume, as in past years I was compelled to go to sea, voyage after voyage.
• It is to be remarked that a good many people are born curiously unfitted for the fate waiting them on this earth.
