Donkin, Wait—Themes and Idioms in Conrad’s The Nigger of the “Narcissus”
Donkin, Wait—Themes and Idioms in Conrad’s The Nigger of the “Narcissus”

Author(s): Cedric Watts
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Literary Texts
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Summary/Abstract: In this essay, I discuss characters, themes and idioms in Conrad’s novel The Niggerof the “Narcissus” (1897). Conrad often makes his villains too caricatural: this is trueof Donkin. The novel’s political outlook is markedly conservative, influenced by theideas of W. E. Henley. The narrator argues, for instance, that “tenderness to suffering”manifests “latent egoism.” In the supernatural covert plot, the ship herself is opposedby Wait and Donkin; and though Wait is subjected to racially prejudicial treatment,he is at least treated sympathetically in his death. Donkin’s cockney idioms were latercorrected by Conrad, but the Cambridge edition of the novel deletes the correctionsand restores the errors.

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