In these four stories, written between 1900 & 1902, Joseph Conrad bid gradual farewell to his adventurous life at sea & began to confront the more daunting complexities of life on land in the twentieth century. In ” Typhoon” Conrad reveals, in the steadfast courage of an undemonstrative captain & the imaginative readiness of his young first mate, the differences between instinct & intelligence in a partnership vital to human survival. ” Falk”, the companion sea-story, contrasts, as Conrad once put it, `common sentimentalism with the frank standpoint of a more or less primitive man`, a man with a conscience, however, about the girl he desires. In one of the `l&-stories` Conrad explores the utter isolation of an East European emigrant in England; in the other, the plight of a woman ironically trapped by the unwitting alliance of two retired widowers
- each blind in his own way.