Joseph Conrad Biography

In his fiction, aimed at both an immediate and a lasting public, modernist experiments coexist with plot devices of popular romance, and unforgettable phrases emerge from vague description. A writer of high artistic ambition who compared himself to Gustave Flaubert and Ivan Turgenev, Conrad wrote fiction that challenged readers and critics alike. His great achievement, and the impetus behind his experimentation with language and form, is his probing analysis of human character under psychological and moral strain. Concerned, as he explains in A Personal Record (1912), that "the ethical view of the universe involves us at last in so many cruel and absurd contradictions ... that I have come to suspect that the aim of creation cannot be ethical at all," Conrad nonetheless, as Carl D. Bennett notes, wrestles as few modern writers have done with "the ethical dimension of human existence." He explores the obsessive pursuit of goals (material and idealistic), the illusions and limitations that obscure reality and thwart action, and confrontations with natural and human obstacles. He is fascinated by mental states associated with isolation, ambition, moral failure, and the fear of death. His memorable characters, from Kurtz and Marlow in "Heart of Darkness" (1899) to Heyst and Lena in Victory: An Island Tale (1915), display weaknesses ranging from egoism and self-deception to hypocrisy and betrayal, yet demonstrate a spectrum of virtues, from love and loyalty to altruism and solidarity.