Youth (Conrad Short Story)
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"Youth" is an autobiographical work of short fiction by
Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...
first published in ''Blackwood’s Magazine'' in 1898 and collected in the eponymous collection ''Youth, A Narrative; and Two Other Stories'' in 1902. This volume also includes the novella ''
Heart of Darkness ''Heart of Darkness'' is an 1899 novella by Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgium, Belgian company in the African interior. Th ...
'' and "The End of the Tether", stories concerned with the themes of maturity and old age, respectively. "Youth" depicts a young man's first journey to the
Far East The Far East is the geographical region that encompasses the easternmost portion of the Asian continent, including North Asia, North, East Asia, East and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included in the definition of the term. In mod ...
. It is narrated by Charles Marlow who is also the narrator of '' Lord Jim'', '' Chance'', and ''Heart of Darkness''. The narrator's introduction suggests this is the first time, chronologically, the character Marlow appears in Conrad's works (the narrator comments that he thinks Marlow spells his name this way). "Youth" is a dramatic rendering of Conrad's experience on the vessel ''Palestine'' in 1881.


Plot

"Youth" begins with a narrator describing five men drinking claret around a mahogany table. They are all veterans of the merchant navy. One of the men, Marlow, speaks of his first voyage to the East as second mate on board the ''Judea''. The story is set 22 years earlier, when Marlow was 20. With two years of experience, most recently as third mate aboard a crack clipper, Marlow receives a billet as second mate on the
barque A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel with three or more mast (sailing), masts of which the fore mast, mainmast, and any additional masts are Square rig, rigged square, and only the aftmost mast (mizzen in three-maste ...
''Judea''. The skipper is Captain John Beard, a man of about 60. This is Beard's first command. The ''Judea'' is an old boat, belonging to a man "Wilmer, Wilcox or something similar", suffering from age and disuse in Shadewell Basin. The 400-ton ship is commissioned to take 600 tons of coal from England to Thailand. The trip should take approximately 150 days. The ship leaves London loaded with sand ballast and heads north to the Senn river to pick up the cargo of coal. On her way, the ''Judea'' suffers from her ballast shifting aside and the crew go below to put things right again. The trip takes 16 days because of "the famous October gale of twenty-two years ago", and the battered ship must use a tug boat to get into port. The ''Judea'' waits a month on the Tyne to be loaded with coal. The night before she ships out she is hit by a steamer, the Miranda or the Melissa. The damage takes another three weeks to repair. Three months after leaving London, the ''Judea'' ships off for
Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estim ...
. The ''Judea'' travels through the
North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...
and Britain. Three hundred miles west of the Lizard, a fiery winter storm hits. The storm "guts" the ''Judea''; she is stripped of her stanchions, ventilators, bulwarks, cabin-door, and deck house. The oakum is stripped from her bottom seams and the men are forced to work at the pumps "watch and watch" to keep the ship afloat. After weathering the storm they must fight their way against the wind back to Falmouth to be refitted. Despite three attempts to leave, the ''Judea'' ultimately remains in Falmouth for more than six months until she is finally overhauled, recaulked, and refitted with new copper hull sheathing. During the laborious overhaul, the cargo is wetted, knocked about, and reloaded multiple times. The rats abandon the reshipped barque and a new crew is brought in from Liverpool (because no sailor will sail on a ship abandoned by rats). The ''Judea'' ships out to Bangkok, running at times 8 knots, but mostly averaging 3 miles per hour. Near the coast of Western Australia, the cargo spontaneously combusts. The crew attempts to smother the fire, but the hull cannot be made airtight. Then they attempt to flood the fire with water, but they cannot fill the hull. One hundred and ninety miles out from Java Head, the gasses in the hull explode and blow up the deck; Marlow is hurled into the air and falls on the burning debris of the deck. The ''Judea'' hails a passing steamer, the Sommerville, which agrees to tow the wounded ship to Anjer or Batavia. Captain Beard intends to scuttle the ''Judea'' there to put out the fire, and then resurface her and resume the voyage to Bangkok. However, the speed of the Sommerville fans the smoldering fire into flames. The crew of the ''Judea'' is forced to send the steamer on without them while they attempt to save possibly most of the ship's gear for the underwriters. The gear is loaded into three small boats, which head due north towards
Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...
. Before the crew leaves the ''Judea'', they enjoy a last meal on deck. Marlow becomes skipper of the smallest of the ship's three boats. All the boats make it safely into a Java port, where they book passage on the steamer Celestial, which is on her return trip to England.


Critical assessment

An autobiographical work, "Youth" represents one of the few stories in Conrad's oeuvre that offer an unalloyed "happy" ending. Author Albert J. Guerard offers this appraisal of the story: Guerard characterizes "Youth" as "the least interesting" of Conrad's works and "may be the closest to the author's waking experience in its nostalgic backward glance."


Style and theme

With "Youth", Conrad introduces his alter ego, that of British high seas mariner Charles Marlow, here at age 42, reminiscing on a formative voyage when, at 20 years of age, he served as the ship's second mate. The story's "essential subject" is that of the "romantic egoist...whose ideal conception of his own personality leads to disaster and an ambiguous redemption." Literary critic Laurence Graver characterizes Marlow's outlook as a challenge to the patronization of youth's excess by their elders, and rather celebrates "the important and unique opportunity" that arises when the young are briefly endowed with a sense of "illusion" that permits them to act with audacity before life becomes "tentative and morally compromising." Graver adds the tale "is a celebration of adolescent strength and enthusiasm tempered by a clear recognition of its shortcoming and its transitory nature." Biographer Joyelyn Baines comments on the utility of the character Marlow in the presentation of Conrad's narratives: Literary critic Ian Watt identifies American author
Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
as the inspiration for Marlow, permitting Conrad to adopt "an indirect narrative approach through the sensitive central intelligence of one of the characters." Marlow appears in a number of Conrad's stories, including ''
Heart of Darkness ''Heart of Darkness'' is an 1899 novella by Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgium, Belgian company in the African interior. Th ...
'' (1898), '' Lord Jim'' (1900), and '' Chance'' (1913), where the character was given "an increasingly complex role."Baines, 1960 p. 212


Publication history

1898 (probably May) – Conrad begins writing "Youth" 3 June 1898 – Conrad finishes writing "Youth" September 1898 – "Youth" is first published in '' Blackwood's Magazine'' 13 November 1902 – the book volume ''Youth: a Narrative, and Two Other Stories'' is published by William Blackwood – also contained the stories "Heart of Darkness" and "The End of the Tether" 1903 – First American edition was published by McClure, Phillips 1917 – Second British edition was published by J. M. Dent 1921 – William Heinemann brought out Youth: A Narrative; and The End of a Tether as part of a limited British edition of the collected works 1923 – published by Doubleday in America, and Dent in Britain as part of the first general collected 'editions' Original forms that are still in existence *An incomplete manuscript *A section of typescript *The Blackwood's Magazine


Adaptions and works influenced

*'' The Young One'' – a film adaptation directed by Julien Samani *"Youth" plays a significant role in the life of the main hero of
Graham Swift Graham Colin Swift FRSL (born 4 May 1949) is a British people, British writer. Born in London, UK, he was educated at Dulwich College, Queens' College, Cambridge, and later the University of York. Career Some of Swift's books have been filmed ...
's novel '' Mothering Sunday''.


References


Sources

*Baines, Jocelyn. 1960. Joseph Conrad: A Critical Biography, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York. *
Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world". Af ...
. Chelsea House Publishers. 1987 pp. 83–99 *Graver, Laurence. 1969. Conrad’s Short Fiction.
University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...
, Berkeley, California. * Guerard, Albert J. 1965. Conrad: The Novelist.
Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...
, Cambridge, Massachusetts. LOC Catalog Card Number 58-8995. * Said, Edward W. 1966. The Past and Present: Conrad’s Shorter Fiction, from Said’s Josef Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography.
Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...
, in Joseph Conrad: Modern Critical Reviews,
Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world". Af ...
editor. Chelsea House Publishers. 1987 pp. 29–51 * Watt, Ian. 1977. Impressionism and Symbolism in Heart of Darkness (italics). The Southern Review, January 1977 in Joseph Conrad: Modern Critical Reviews, editor
Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world". Af ...
. Chelsea House Publishers. 1987 pp. 83–99


External links


Joseph Conrad's Chronology''Youth, a narrative; and two other stories''
available at
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
(original edition scanned books) *
"Youth"
available at
Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital li ...
(computer generated audio)
"Youth"
available at Project Gutenberg (plain text)
Maritime Terminology
* {{Authority control 1898 short stories Short stories by Joseph Conrad Existentialist short stories Frame stories Works originally published in Blackwood's Magazine William Blackwood books Autobiographical short stories