Joseph Conrad - Short Stories

In this collection are four of Conrad’s short stories. Of the four only two really stood out to me and made me think: An Outpost of Progress and The Heart of Darkness. Both of them have themes of obsession and the depths of cruelty that man can stoop to.

The first story An Oupost of Progress is a very cynical look at imperialism. It is based around two people who live at an outpost of the British Empire. The two white men stationed at a trading post are viewed very cynically. The place that is meant to be a symbol of western ideals and of progress, in the end is run by two people unable to think for themselves. They as white men feel that they are both safe and superior from those around them. Who they are Conrad states is just a manifestation of the people not them. As a result they are incapable of making decisions and thinking for themselves. All independant thought is taken away from them and they have no initiative. It is in essence almost if they have simply jumped on the bandwagon, they see the Empire as a means to make a name for themselves and have enlisted themselves yet they have no drive, it is the safety that comes from the association with the trading station that the hold onto, the prestige that they have endowed the location with. The chief two protaganists are Kayerts and Carlier. Both of whom are portrayed as having spent so long together that they despise each other as they both are searching for a way to escape and move out from the outpost of progress. The implication is that civilization is hollow at the core like the two men, they are just a manifestation of a system of deceptive innistutions and social conventions that sustain the illusion of progress. The emissaries of progress have become isolated alienated in the wilderness of the Congo, they are only there as a commercial enterprise and as a result they are unable to cling to their motives and become the ghosts of society. The illusions can’t be sustained in isolation, and out their in the Outpost they can not maintain the dillusion as there is no one who will participate in the act outside of them and it has hard to maintain a superficial stance all the time. The final result is that the locals, who fail to buy into western europes ideals and illusion and betray the two traders, thus when the manager comes to look on the trading post he encounters Carlier dead and Kayert hanging from a cross, the ideals and valies of progress when isolated in two people who have been deadened of their individuality leads them to kill themself.

The second one I liked was a Heart of Darkness. This is Conrad’s most famous story, I found it hard going to read, and wasn’t a big fan of his style. I think partly because it was long winded at times. It was famously adapted in the film Apocolypse Now. I think it is interesting but not as much as it is hyped up to be. For me it is all about how we build up things, goals, ideals and spend our life pursueing them, although we are never fully sure about why we are chasing them, that when we find them we are always disappointed in them . Marlow is sent to go bring Mr Kurtz back from his post, and the voyage is seen as one of self discovery where he is able to look inside himself and reveal his inner thoughts and feelings. I think that it is very much the case as his view of the world causes him to look inside himself. THis feeling of isolation is a theme that runs throughout the books. The concept being that western man when put into an alien environment discovers that the world is an isolated place, the objective is to spread colonialism but in the end they discover how alone they really are. This is echoed in the passage ‘It is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence - that which makes its truth, itsmeaning - its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream - alone..’ Here Conrad through Marlow wants to describe the phyronnian scepticism the idea that we only can understand shadows of external reality, our perception of the world is ours alone and no one else can understand it. This can clearly be seen to be a product of his experience in the Congo when surrounded by that which is unfamiliar it is easy to assume that only you understand yourself, the others external of you seem alien and incapable of understanding each other, you can’t comprehend them thus they must be unable to understand you. Marlow goes on to build upon this idea of the solitary man, of mankind isolated when he discusses work ‘I don’t like work - no man does - but i like what is in the work, - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - what no other man can ever know. They only see the mere show, and never what it really means.’ Here we see that Marlow through his voyage has seen the intrinsic laziness of man, the traders and colonial generals have been seen as lazy, money grabbers who just want an easy life. Here Marlow uses this to make the point that he himself is like them against work but he sees the need of work. To find his own meaning, and the same theme of the isolated reality that no man bt yoruself can ever know what it means. These were the points that I really got from the work it is easy to look deeper and find an extended metaphor for life, how when th boat is broken, and our purpose in life, the idea that we stumble along finding our own meaning, informed by our own stereotypes and prejudices, we make the world mean what we want it to mean.