''Typhoon'' is a short novel 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 short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in t ...
, begun in 1899 and serialized in ''
Pall Mall Magazine
''The Pall Mall Magazine'' was a monthly British literary magazine published between 1893 and 1914. Begun by William Waldorf Astor as an offshoot of ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', the magazine included poetry, short stories, serialized fiction, and ge ...
'' in January–March 1902. Its first book publication was in New York by
Putnam in 1902; it was also published in Britain in ''Typhoon and Other Stories'' by
Heinemann Heinemann may refer to:
* Heinemann (surname)
* Heinemann (publisher), a publishing company
* Heinemann Park, a.k.a. Pelican Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
See also
* Heineman
* Jamie Hyneman
James Franklin Hyneman (born Se ...
in 1903.
Plot summary
Captain MacWhirr sails the ''SS Nan-Shan'', a British-built steamer running under the
Siam
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 mi ...
ese flag, into a
typhoon
A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, accounting for a ...
—a mature
tropical cyclone
A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...
of the northwestern part of the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
. Other characters include the young Jukes—most probably an
alter ego
An alter ego (Latin for "other I", " doppelgänger") means an alternate self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or true original personality. Finding one's alter ego will require finding one's other self, one with a differen ...
of Conrad from the time he had sailed under captain John McWhirr—and Solomon Rout, the chief engineer. While Macwhirr, who, according to Conrad, "never walked on this Earth"—is emotionally estranged from his family and crew, and though he refuses to consider an alternative course to skirt the typhoon, his indomitable will in the face of a superior natural force elicits grudging admiration.
Analysis
Conrad "broke new ground" by showing the ways a steam ship differs from a sailing vessel, an historic shift occurring at the time. For example how the crew were broken into "sailors and firemen"
ngineers the unromantic labors of Hackett and Beal; the captain as a mirror of his ship, isolated from nature and lacking the power of imagination.
Stylistically, Conrad made "perhaps the most celebrated
ellipsis
The ellipsis (, also known informally as dot dot dot) is a series of dots that indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning. The plural is ellipses. The term origin ...
in modern short fiction".
At the end of chapter V the story reaches a climactic point, the ship barely makes it into the eye of the typhoon and faces a final challenge to exit the storm through the eye wall.
:The hurricane, with its power to madden the seas, to sink ships, to uproot trees, to overturn strong walls and dash the very birds of the air to the ground, had found this taciturn man in its path, and, doing its utmost, had managed to wring out a few words. Before the renewed wrath of winds swooped on his ship, Captain MacWhirr was moved to declare, in a tone of vexation, as it were: “I wouldn't like to lose her.”
This is followed by a single sentence:
:He was spared that annoyance.
The story then leaps forward in time with the ship back in port, the events of what happened unstated. This was an innovative technique with hints of
post-modernism
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticis ...
.
He challenges the reader to fill in the events of the story themselves. The break in the chronology is particularly effective, and jarring, as the preceding passages had been so detailed that the time it took to read the novel and the real time of the story were not so far apart.
Real life connections
In 1887, Conrad worked as chief mate on the ''Highland Forest'' under Captain John McWhir, whom he portrays in the novel as "McWhirr".
He drew upon this 6 months voyage for the novel.
Conrad once dictated to biographer and friend
Richard Curle a list of ships he served on, and the stories they were connected to—the connections might have been minor (a single character or incident) or major (a complete voyage), Conrad did not indicate. For ''Typhoon'' he said it "suggested" the steamer ''John P. Best'' which he served on.
Joseph Conrad dedicated the book to
Cunninghame Graham, a fellow writer and Scots radical who was an enthusiastic supporter of Conrad since his earliest publications.
Characters
* Captain Thomas MacWhirr, an empirical man without imagination.
* Captain Wilson from "Melita", the "storm-strategist".
* Jukes, the
first mate (with no first name).
* Jukes' absent friends -
second mate Jack Allen and another mate from trans-Atlantic liner (addressee of Jukes' letter).
* Solomon Rout, the
chief engineer, an experienced seaman.
* Second engineer Harry and third engineer Beale.
* The
boatswain
A boatswain ( , ), bo's'n, bos'n, or bosun, also known as a deck boss, or a qualified member of the deck department, is the most senior rate of the deck department and is responsible for the components of a ship's hull. The boatswain supervi ...
.
* The second mate.
* Sailors, steward and cook of the "Nan-Shan".
* The
coolies
A coolie (also spelled koelie, kuli, khuli, khulie, cooli, cooly, or quli) is a term for a low-wage labourer, typically of South Asian or East Asian descent.
The word ''coolie'' was first popularized in the 16th century by European traders acros ...
, hired workers from India and China.
* The clerk for Messrs. Bun-Hin Co.
* Mrs. Lucy MacWhirr, the Captain's wife.
* Lydia MacWhirr, the Captain's daughter and Tom MacWhirr, the Captain's son.
* Mrs. Rout, the chief engineer's wife and the elder Mrs. Rout, the chief engineer's mother.
* Messrs. Sigg and Son, the owners of the boat.
* Owners and foremen (Mr. Mr. Bates and Tait) from the building yard.
References
External links
''Typhoon and Other Stories'' available at
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
(1921 edition)
Typhoon available at eBooks@Adelaide
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Typhoon (novel)
1902 British novels
British novellas
Novellas by Joseph Conrad
Novels first published in serial form
Novels set on ships
Works originally published in The Pall Mall Magazine