Conrad and the Comic Turn

Abstract

Conrad and the Comic Turn This essay argues for the neglected importance of forms of popular theatre, and especially music-hall, for Conrad’s education in English culture, and for the style of comic situations, and comic dialogue, in his fiction. The early novel The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ is shown to be particularly imbued with memories of the music-hall, in its theatrical topography, its crew who are both audience and participatory chorus of the main drama, and in its dramatically-lit cynosure Wait. “An Outpost of Progress” is examined as a variation on the “turn” of comic pals, and for its elements of slapstick farce. Versions of theatrical comic sketches are found embedded other fictions, including profoundly tragic ones, such as The Secret Agent. Finally, music-hall’s adeptness at creating comedy and evading censorship and censure through the use of innuendo, suggestion, irony and double entendre is found often to be a principle of Conradian dialogue and even narration, in such stories as “Heart of Darkness”.