Conradslife1111.docx 

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John Rubio

English 12

Feb 24, 2015

Conrad's Biography

Joseph Conrad is the writer of Heart of Darkness. He is regarded as one of the most famous English authors. Even though English was not his first Language, his narrative writing style and anti-heroic characters influenced many authors. Most of his stories are reflected by his life experiences. He underwent an unique life from his turbulent childhood, his sea career, and his time as an author. (add 4 more sentences)

Joseph Conrad was born on December 3^rd 1857 in Berdychiv, in Podolia. His father, Apollo Korzeniowski, was a patriotic poet who translated the works of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo. In 1836, his father went to direct the Polish insurrection against oppressive Russian rule and was arrested and sent into exile at Vologda. Conrad's childhood was largely affected by his exile with his family, his parents' deaths, and his adoption by his uncle. (add 3 more sentences)

Due to his father's political activism, Conrad's family was forced to leave the Kingdom of Poland when he was 4 years old. “Apollo advocated the liberation of the serfs, the rights of Ruthenians and Jews and an uprising to secure national independence.” (Peters 17) The Russian oppression of Poland violated Apollo's advocacy, so he participated in uprisings against Russian rule, and the Russian government sealed up his land. "Conrad moved almost as frequently during his Polish Childhood as he did during his years at sea, and he formed no close friendships in Poland." (Meyers 11) The first place Conrad’s family moved to was Warsaw, where his father joined the resistance against the Russian Empire. Then they were exiled to Vologda. Until Conrad’s father's sentence was commuted, and the family was sent to Chernihiv, which had better conditions. About two years later, Conrad's mother Ewa died of tuberculosis.

After Ewa's death, Apollo did his best to educate Conrad. “Apollo wrote about Conrad ‘The little orphan keeps clinging to me and it is impossible not worry about him constantly and I teach him all I know” (Peters 17). Because Apollo was a writer and a translator, Conrad developed a good habit of reading. His father would force Conrad to read aloud after him, from Polish Romantic poetry and Shakespeare. "My earliest memory is of my mother at the piano; of being let into a room which to this day seems to me the very largest room which I was ever in, of the music suddenly stopping, and my mother, with her hands on the keyboard, turning her head to look at me" (Meyers 11). When Conrad recalled his first memory, his mother first came out in his mind. Family was one of the most important parts of his childhood for Conrad; therefore, he would follow his father's lessons and write stories when we was on the sea. When Conrad was eleven, his father like his wife, died of tuberculosis and left Conrad orphaned.

After his parents' deaths, Conrad was taken in by his uncle Tadeusz Bobrowski. “Tadeusz, who had a completely set of values, replaced Apollo and became Conrad’s surrogate father. He transferred all his affection to the orphaned child of his beloved sister.” (Meyers 26). Conrad was not a good student. Tadeusz spent a great deal of money on tutoring, even though Conrad was still only good at geography. Different from Apollo who implanted Conrad with revolutionary beliefs, Tadeusz introduced him to a trade. "His uncle saw him as a sailor-cum-businessman who would combine maritime skills with commercial activities." (Najder 45). Actually, when Conrad was thirteen years old, he had already announced that he wanted to become a sailor.

In 1874, Conrad finally achieved his desire of becoming a seaman. His time at sea was his most flexuose (find another word) life time; after experiencing a great depression, he started over everything and began to write novels. During Conrad's seafaring years, he went to the French port city of Marseille, West Indies, and the Congo. (add 3 more sentences)

In 1874, Conrad received a permission from his uncle to leave Poland and travel to the French port city of Marseille to join the French Merchant Navy. “While learning seamanship in Marseille, he led a wild life full of romantic adventures and reckless spending.” (Bloom 12). During his time as a seaman, Conrad attempted suicide, and lost all of his money on a failed smuggling expedition. “Conrad spent four adventurous years with the French navy” (Miller 9). (add a commentary) After this great depression, Conrad made three voyages to the West Indies.

In 1878, after arriving in the West Indies, Conrad experienced a severe depression. Due to lying about having the proper permits, he was forbidden to work on any French ships. In 1878, because of his gambling debts and no work, he shot himself through the chest, but survived. “In 1878, after a failed suicide attempt in Marseille, Conrad took service on his first British ship,bound for Constantinople before its return to Lowestoft, his first landing in Britain” (Conrad 7). During his time with the British Merchant Service, Conrad’s life had drastically changed. He became a British subject. He passed his examination for Ordinary Master of the British Merchant Marine. “But I still absolutely refused to learn grammar,and I picked up my first English by hearing it spoken on colliers along the East Coast” (Ra 104) Conrad didn't start to write stories until he took an English ship to the eastern port-town of Lowestoft, where he learned English.

In 1890, during one of his voyages, Conrad sailed a steamboat up the Congo River, which was recorded in one of his most famous work Heart of Darkness. "The reader is virtually sucked into the scene depicted in Heart of Darkness-up the Congo River, where the protagonist has discovered, and is overcome by humanity’s hidden carnivorous nature" (Hooper 39). Conrad turned his recollections of his trips into the novels Heart of Darkness and Almayer's Folly. He liked Congo because working there can provide him enough money and adventures simultaneously. (He actually hated Congo, because he was wracked with illness and despised the imperialists.) "The two-months’ journey is bathed in silence,toil, mystery, danger,fear,stillness, amazement on the broadening waters of the Congo." (Panichas 161). On the other hand, Conrad experienced a physical and mental breakdown, which affected his health. Because of his illness and the success of his first novel, Conrad set up on his new adventure of becoming an English novelist.

The sufficient life experience offered Conrad natural resources (find another word) for his novels. From tales of sea travel to political intrigue to themes of solitude and , Conrad gradually became one of the greatest English authors. (add 4 more sentences)

From 1896 to 1904, Conrad wrote novels that recorded his life as a merchant marine. The Nigger of the Narcissus is one of his famous books that depicted a black sailor's impending death influenced by his fellow crewmen. The story can be traced to Conrad's life experience with the French navy. In Heart of Darkness, using his experiences in the Congo, Conrad wrote a story about Marlow's journey into the Belgian Congo to present (find another word) a life style. While Conrad was writing tales of sea travel, he developed interest in a novel of political intrigue. (Add two quotes and commentaries in this paragraph.)

Later on, Conrad begin to write novels that reflected his political side. “Moving away from his focus on the individual in a colonial setting to engage overtly with broader social and political frameworks, Nostromo is considered the first of Conrad’s political novels” (Baxter 103) Nostromo was an imaginative novel which expresses men's corruptibility and vulnerability. “The clearest case of genetic influence is evident in Conrad’s two novels of espionage, The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes, where the mixture of moral ambiguity, political intrigue and domestic squalor has found a lasting echo in the spy fictions of W.Somerset Maugham” (Stape 23). The Secret Agent is about a group of anarchists who plan to blow up the Greenwich Observatory; Under Western Eyes presented a student who betrays his friend to the authorities. Because of his success with literature, Conrad was able to live without financial problems. He focus on the study of solitude (find another way to say).

Conrad shift his attention to the nature of human identity and themes of isolation. In 1913, book Chance was published. It was Conrad’s last book before he died of a heart attack. “It seemed to Conrad, that spectacular attempts at personal fulfillment could only occur on the frontiers of civilization and wilderness. Even then, they are without consequence to the civilization from which these desires spring” (Lord 80). Similar to Heart of Darkness, in the book Chance, Conrad explored how innocent people, someone like Marlow (add another quote discuss “who is Marlow” and commentary here)  become hardened by the horrors around them.

Exiled with his parents when he was young, being taken in by his uncle, and being a sailor, Conrad represented (find another word) all his experiences through his novels, and depicted the trials of the human spirit in them. He not only inspired authors, but also films. He became a representative non-English novelist in English literature (find another way to say).    (add 5 more sentences in this paragraph)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work Cited:

Hooper Brad. The Short Story Readers' Advisory: A Guide to the Best. Chicago: American Library Association,  2000. Print.

Panichas George A. Joseph Conrad: His Moral Vision. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2007. Print.

Bloom Harold.  Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2009. Print.

Meyers Jeffrey. Joseph Conrad: A Biography. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 2001. Print.

Stape J. H. The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Print.

Peters John G. Joseph Conrad's Critical Reception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.Print.

Peters John. A Historical Guide to Joseph Conrad. Oxford:Oxford University Press Inc, 2010. Print.

Conrad Joseph. The Secret Sharer: An Episode from the Coast. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1996. Print.

Isobel Baxter Katherine. Joseph Conrad and the Swan Song of Romance. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. Print.

Miller Marlowe A. Masterpieces of British Modernism. Santa Barbara: Greenwood Press, 2006. Print.

Ra Martin. Joseph Conrad: Memories and Impressions: An Annotated Bibliography.  Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. Print.

Wollaeger Mark A. Joseph Conrad and the Fictions of Skepticism. Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 1990. Print.

Preece Rod. Animals and Nature: Cultural Myths, Cultural Realities. Vancouver: The University of British Columbia Press, 2005. Print.

Lord Ursula. Solitude Versus Solidarity in the Novels of Joseph Conrad. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998. Print.

Najder Zdzislaw. Conrad in Perspective: Essays on Art and Fidelity.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Print.