Joseph Conrad

The Nigger of The "Narcissus" Joseph Conrad

The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' is a novella by Joseph Conrad. Because of its quality compared to earlier works, some have described it as marking the start of Conrad's major, or middle, period others have placed it as the best work of his early, or first, period. The Nigger of the Narcissus is a tale about the fall and rescue of mankind through redemption. The inner message lying under the lines and sometimes among the lines is that man must get rid of his powerful irrational unconscious forces before the "voyage has done". The way in which one could do it well is doing their own duty skilfully in silence without listening to emotional chattering of the crew (which symbolizes human nature as a whole). There's a strong contrast between the crew and a single man, courage and weakness, conscious and unconscious, the former can be represented by Singleton the latter by James Wait. Although nobody can state that Conrad wrote a religious and Christian tale, one can say without denial that the plot is woven as a similar one. Conrad reveals his pessimism in conveying that man is condemned to stand alone in his lifetime passage while solidarity is momentous and due to need to overcome dangers.