Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The critical discourse: five tropes
- 2 Working on language and structure: alternative strategies in The Nigger of the “Narcissus” “Karain” and “Youth”
- 3 The mirror effect in “Heart of Darkness”
- 4 Lord Jim (I): the narrator as interpreter
- 5 Lord Jim (II): the narrator as reader
- Postscript
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Working on language and structure: alternative strategies in The Nigger of the “Narcissus” “Karain” and “Youth”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The critical discourse: five tropes
- 2 Working on language and structure: alternative strategies in The Nigger of the “Narcissus” “Karain” and “Youth”
- 3 The mirror effect in “Heart of Darkness”
- 4 Lord Jim (I): the narrator as interpreter
- 5 Lord Jim (II): the narrator as reader
- Postscript
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Ford Madox Ford, in his preface to the posthumously published fragment of The Sisters, writes that Conrad stopped work on the unfinished story as a result of Garnett's suggestion that he try a more congenial (and commercially viable) sea story. Conrad acknowledges his literary mentor's intervention in a March 23, 1896, letter (CL I, 268):
you have driven home the conviction and I shall write the sea-story – at once (12 months). It will be on the lines indicated to you … I am looking for a sensational title … I suggest
THE RESCUER
A Tale of Narrow Waters
However, Conrad simply could not bring himself to write this tale, and The Rescuer was only completed twenty years later, with the title The Rescue. There was something in the tale which proved to be too irksome for him at that early stage in his career.
Why was it that Conrad could not write this love story at sea, set in the oriental surroundings he had evoked in his Malayan tales? Moser's answer – Conrad's inability to portray the passion between Lingard and Beatrix, the female heroine in the first draft – has satisfied many commentators, who have used Moser's readings of passages portraying love themes in Conrad's novels to demonstrate the author's lack of control over his own writing and the “decline” of his creative power.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Conrad's Fiction as Critical Discourse , pp. 48 - 67Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991