One of the finest sytlist of modern English literature was Joseph Conrad, was a Polish-born
English novelist, short story writer, essayist, dramatist, and autobiographer. Conrad was
born in 1857 in a Russian-ruled Province of Poland. According to Jocelyn Baines, a literary
critic, "Conrad was exiled with his parents to northern Russia in 1863 following his his
parents participation in the Polish independence movement". (Baines 34). His parents' health
rapidly deteriorated in Russia, and after their deaths in 1868, Conrad lived in the homes of
relatives, where he was often ill and received spradic schooling (35). Conrad's birth-given
name was Jozef Tedor Konrad Valecz Korzeniowski, however, his name was legally
changed (39). Conrad died of a heart attack, August 3, 1924, in Bishopsbourne Kent,
England (34). With such an innovative style, Joseph Conrad was perhaps one of Britain's
most remarkable authors of modern English literature.
Throughout Conrad's career, his works have became influential as well as
remarkable. Cited by Ted E. Boyle, a short story analysis, "Conrad's novels are complex
moral and psychological examinations of ambiguous nature of good and evil" (Boyle 93).
Conrad's characters are repeatedly forced to acknowledge their own failures and the
weakness of their ideals against all forms of coruption; the most honorable characters are
those who realize their fallibility but still struggle to up hold the dictates of conscience (99).
Early in life, Conrad pursued a career as a seaman, sailing to Martinique and the West
Indies. In 1894, he began a career as a writer, basing much of his work on his experience
as a seaman (100). Throughout his career, "Conrad examined the impossibility of living by a
traditional code of conduct". His novels "postulate that the complexity of the human spirit
allows neither absolute fidelity to any ideal nor even to one's conscience" (Baines...