Joseph Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzenowski was born in the Ukraine, Russian Poland, in 1857 and died in 1924. His father translated Shakespeare and Dickens. Joseph learned to read English, but he could not speak it. When he was four years old, his parents were charged with conspiracy, and were banished from Russia. Both of his parents died when he was twelve years old; therefore, he was raised by a maternal uncle. He left home and joined the French Marines when he was seventeen, and made numerous voyages to the West Indies. While he was in the French Marines, he got involved in gun smuggling and joined the English Merchant Marines when he was twenty-two. He changed his name to Conrad and became an English citizen. In eight years he earned his Master Mariner's Certificate in 1886 and became a naturalized British citizen. In 1896 he got married and retired from the marines to become one of England's greatest novelist as well as one of the greatest prose stylist. As one critic notes, "Conflict and convergence of emotional and physical landscapes, morality, fidelity, solidarity, betrayal, and self deception and organizing concepts" are all images that are projected through Conrad's fiction (Beerbohm 195). Mr. Conrad has not written any full sized plays. He is a "poet in all but the shaping spirit of verse" (Beerbohm 195). He has been compared with Browning for the "moral rather that the poet character and the comparison on either one is astonishing" (Beerbohm 195). Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness in 1902. It is a rather "weak idealist driven mad by horror of the tropical forest and lonliness among savages" (Beerbohm 195). Heart of Darkness is a representation of the moral struggles and physical and emotional journeys that individuals go through during their lives.
             Marlow is an English seaman, aboard a ship called the Nellie. The Nellie is anchored on the Thames River outside London, whe...