Citation:
Date Published:
10 Jan, 2020Abstract:
Conrad’s The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ is more than a tribute to life at sea, but the novel’s sympathetic portrayal of a multi-national group of physical laborers paid a meager wage, living in harsh conditions, and performing repetitive and physically debilitating work, is significantly understudied. The present article considers Conrad’s compelling representation of the life of British merchant sailors for a middle-class literary audience. I demonstrate how Conrad makes his readers listen to the voice of the sailors, reflect on the value of their work, and appreciate the importance of seemingly menial, physical labor — such as serving coffee during a storm.
October 2019: Johan Adam Warodell has published articles on Conrad and Melville in The Cambridge Quarterly, Conradiana, The Conradian, English, Leviathan, Notes & Queries, and the Yearbook of Conrad Studies. His writing has won prizes from the Joseph Conrad Societies of Britain and America. He was most recently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of English Studies, University of London. He is presently completing a monograph on Conrad.