Nostromo is Conrad's ultimately impressionistic novel, modeled upon his earlier experiment with form in Lord Jim (1900). Here the chronology is jumbled as he introduces characters whose roles in the events of Sulaco's stormy history during revolution are gradually revealed, sometimes through the actions and speech of others, sometimes in recollections after the fact, once in a letter, but principally by an anonymous narrator whose point of view moves between a third person who could plausibly reconstruct events and an omniscient narrator who reveals the emotions and unspoken thoughts of the characters. This gathering of impressions — providing knowledge of outcomes before events are described, distorting the reader's sense of time and place — reflects the act of the mind remembering events, moving from incident to incident, piecing together meaning as the memory does, not chronologically.....
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