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- Title
Joseph Conrad's "Youth:" A Sea Story between History and Fiction.
- Authors
à. Campo, J. N. F. M.
- Abstract
Conrad's sea story "Youth" is a frame narrative in which the narrator, forty-year-old Marlow, relates the story of his first voyage to the "East" at the age of twenty. Marlow stresses that his story is more than a personal anecdote and that it "might stand for a symbol of existence." My concern, however, is to read the story as a discourse on history. This reading covers the layers of fact, value, process, context and method. The referential reading made clear that Conrad deviated from documentary fact in order to convey his symbolic message. The normative reading pointed out his position on central values like manliness, work, heroism and imperialism. Reading the story meta-historically, it appeared that his paradoxical and ironic view of historical processes ran counter to the prevailing belief in progress. As the methodological reading bore out, Conrad superimposed various narrative methods in order to make clear how the drama could have its impact on the growth of the self-consciousness of the protagonist. Finally, my analysis served as a test of Conrad's claim that "artful fiction is 'nearer truth' than academic historiography," and as a basis for highlighting the similarities and the differences between documentary history and imaginative fiction in general.
- Subjects
YOUTH (Book); CONRAD, Joseph, 1857-1924; SAILORS in literature; HISTORICAL fiction -- History &; criticism; MARLOW (Fictional character)
- Publication
International Journal of Maritime History, 2012, Vol 24, Issue 1, p29
- ISSN
0843-8714
- Publication type
Literary Criticism
- DOI
10.1177/084387141202400103