Josef Conrad - Life, style and thought

He was called "homo duplex" because the idea of duality charaterizes is life and his works, infact he has 2 nationality, and 2 professional jobs.
He was born in 1857 in Poland in a territory occupied by Russia, so he experimented the colonialism by himself. After his parents death, he left for Marseiless to go to sea.
His career put him in contact with men from different social classes and this experience became the material for his works.
In 1890 Conrad went to Africa to replace a sea capitain and this journey was recorded in "Congo's Diary".
He wrote: " The nigger of Narcisuss, Nostromo, ecc... but his masterpiece is Heart of Darkness.
Conrad's native tongue was Polish, the second is French, however he wrote in English. He tought that English words have different connotation so this language his the best to express his complex vision of life.

Conrad set his novels in exotic settings, and he his a good writer of adventure stories. However he did not write about Congo and China because he belived that human nature is different there, but because these are the places he knew well, so he can isolate the characters and their inner conflicts.
Conrad is different from the other writers of 19th century, infact he believed that writer's aim is not to teach a lesson but to explore the meaning of human situation (this is what Joyce call "Epiphany").
His novels are not focused on the plot of the story, but on the effects of the events in the characters. He uses the first person narrator, prefering it on the omniscent narrator to distance himself from the experiences behind the story.
He refused cronological time and preferred use Time shift (flashback) to create the illusion of life being lived by a great number of very different people.