Joseph Conrad Trivia

1. On what boat does this story begin?

From Quiz Heart of Darkness

Answer: The Nellie

Our narrator commences the story on the River Thames in London as a crew aboard a yawl known as The Nellie settles in for a slow cruise down the English waterway. Particularly, the narrator makes mention of a man named Marlow who rests on the side of the ship. This man, described as one who still followed the sea, makes note of the fact that England has been known as one of the dark places of the Earth. He continues onward with his tale, hesitating to even speak it out of the interest of the crew, but he speaks anyways of his travels. Once, in London, he had dreamed to venture to foreign lands and one in particular. To do so, he received a job and became employed as the skipper of a ship heading to Africa filling the void left by a Danish man who was killed earlier at the same destination by a local Native tribesman. So the gears go into motion- Marlow heads to the offices of his particular trade company and he's set up with the necessary paperwork. Upon receiving a physical from a doctor he is asked if his family has a history of madness though he is assured that this is a formality in the name of science.

From Quiz Conrad: Secret Sharer and Heart of Darkness

Answer: On a ship

The novel takes place on a ship in an undisclosed location. We can only tell that the ship is sailing to someplace remote.

From Quiz The Secret Agent

Answer: Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad is actually Polish. English was his third language and yet he wrote in it - pretty impressive if you ask me.

From Quiz Heart of Darkness

Answer: The manner in which notes were added to the book

Marlow fancies that the notes are written in cipher instead of some foreign language. When he return the tattered book to its original owner, the Russian "harlequin", he is disappointed to learn that they are only in a foreign language.

From Quiz Heart of Darkness

Answer: Aunt

Before embarking on his journey, Marlow speaks with his aunt who got him the job in Africa and she states that she is happy to see people "weaning those ignorant millions from their horrible ways". Marlow is discomforted by this and gets the feeling that an ominous future lay ahead despite the fact that this is not his first sea voyage to an unknown land. It takes over a month for Marlow to sail along the coasts of the continents he travels by. He finally arrives at the mouth of the river he so longs to visit and he finds that he must first wait at an intermediate location on his trek through Africa. On his way he discovers a spot where several malnourished locals have come, as he supposes, to die and he is shocked by what he sees. Onward, he finds a shack occupied by the company's accountant and it is here, in the company of this luxuriously-dressed man, where he waits for ten days for further instruction.

From Quiz Conrad: Secret Sharer and Heart of Darkness

Answer: We do not know the name

We are never told the name of the narrator. The story is told from the first person and we only know the narrator by "I." The only character specifically named is Leggatt. The rest of the crew is named by peculiar body descriptions or by their position on the ship, e.g. second mate.

From Quiz The Secret Agent

Answer: 1907

From Quiz Heart of Darkness

Answer: The Romans

When the wandering sailor Marlow first speaks up, he says "this too was once one of the dark places of the earth" and describes the conquests of the Romans and how they could never relate to their sheer desires borne out of savagery because of the conveniences of civilization since then. He later goes on to describe his journey down the Congo River and, in doing so, creates a parallel between the Romans and European missionaries.

From Quiz Heart of Darkness

Answer: Mr. Kurtz

As Marlow makes his way through the African wilderness to a post upriver, he begins to note the difficult tasks ahead. Along the way men start to fall ill with foreign diseases, the land is bleak and empty, and upon arriving at the station fifteen days journey away, he is presented with even more bad news about Mr. Kurtz, the agent who he is expected to meet. The man has fallen ill with similar diseases and the situation is somewhat dire. Leaving the station the very next day, Marlow encounters even more odd occurrences from spontaneous fires to wandering natives performing uncanny spiritual bouts. The men from Britain do very little, Marlow discovers, and he claims that they always seem to wait for something when all that ever really comes is disease. The men are also waiting for their appointment to work at trading posts in the area though there is no telling how long they must wait. When Marlow asks one of the men about Mr. Kurtz, he discovers that this mysterious man he has never met is the Chief of the Inner Station and that the men who his aunt was acquainted with (and who gave him the job) also specially recommended Kurtz for the role he plays in Africa. Nonetheless, the man Marlow asks is apprehensive about talking on the subject of the yet-to-be-seen Mr. Kurtz as the man seems to have a reputation beyond his name.

From Quiz Conrad: Secret Sharer and Heart of Darkness

Answer: Leggatt

"The Secret Sharer" is a psychological novel. Many critics believe Leggatt does not actually exist. This is an example of Jungian psychology.

From Quiz The Secret Agent

Answer: Verloc

If you ask me though, Verloc isn't a very 'secret' secret agent, and I think that time is the true secret agent as it is this that finally wins out.

From Quiz Heart of Darkness

Answer: Hanged himself

Marlow is appalled by the statement and cries "Hanged himself!" When he inquires about the reason for the suicide, the captains says he does not know, but that "The sun was too much for him, or the country perhaps."

From Quiz Conrad: Secret Sharer and Heart of Darkness

Answer: Sephora

The captain of the Sephora comes onto the narrator's ship in search of Leggatt.

From Quiz The Secret Agent

Answer: Michaelis

From Quiz Conrad: Secret Sharer and Heart of Darkness

Answer: We do not know his name

Oddly enough, Marlow is not the narrator. It is his story being told, like in Coleridge's the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Yet it is an unidentified observer who provides the lens into Marlow's fantastic story.

From Quiz The Secret Agent

Answer: The Professor

From Quiz Conrad: Secret Sharer and Heart of Darkness

Answer: Belgium

However, Marlow is telling the story from a yacht sitting on the Thames river.

From Quiz The Secret Agent

Answer: Wedding ring

The wedding ring is representative of eternity and this is why it is symbolic that she leaves it behind her.

From Quiz Heart of Darkness

Answer: Starvation

He recounts the uncharacteristic restraint that the cannibals aboard the ship exhibited by picking on rotten hippo meat and bread instead of resorting to cannibalism. "Prolonged hunger," Marlow says, is the most maddening experience a human can endure.

From Quiz Heart of Darkness

Answer: Ivory

Marlow continues his story to a point after the attack. Mr. Kurtz is, in fact, alive. His shack at the Inner Station was filled with ivory before much of it was brought onto the ship for transport. It turns out Mr. Kurtz feels entitled enough to 'own' the ivory, the jungle, the river, and much of everything else, and Marlow makes note of the man's mannerisms in this regard. Mr. Kurtz was originally commissioned to write a report on the customs of the land (which he did), but he came away from the experience a changed man. Now, as Marlow observes, the man had placed himself on "a high seat amongst the devils of the land". The Inner Station is not far downriver from the attack and the steamship reaches it quite soon. Marlow is greeted by a man who came from Russia who admits to leaving the message and firewood fifty miles downstream. Marlow also returns the man's book (it turns out that the cipher was text from his). The man also makes it clear that the Natives have not killed Kurtz- in fact, they don't really want him to leave.

From Quiz Conrad: Secret Sharer and Heart of Darkness

Answer: black

These two women may represent the classic fates. They are producing the thread that is Marlow's life. Atropos, the third fate is missing. Atropos is the fate who cuts the thread of life. This is a sign that Marlow is not yet ready to die.

From Quiz The Secret Agent

Answer: Circles

Circles, again, representative of eternity. He confuses them into tangles, and this reveals the anarchic nature of his character, linking him with subjective time, that is to say, time that is experienced upon a personal level.

From Quiz Heart of Darkness

Answer: The mad helmsman of his ship

The strangely clothed helmsman is described as having an athletic build and steering wildly only when he was aware Marlow was watching. When the natives attack, his reputation as an impulsive fool precedes him, as he fires his Martini-Henry wildly into the bushes, shaking it, and only steering in intervals and, even then, toward the brush.

From Quiz Conrad: Secret Sharer and Heart of Darkness

Answer: Ivory hunter

Kurtz is a literary enigma. We know so little about him. He hunts for ivory but in odd ways. He has become a sort of god to the natives due to his use of thunder (guns). He is quite willing to kill.

From Quiz The Secret Agent

Answer: Heat

Verloc is working for the anarchists and for Heat too, as an informer.

From Quiz Heart of Darkness

Answer: Scaring away the natives when they were battling the pilgrims

When he departs from that stretch of the river that Kurtz was occupying the natives attack a second time at dawn. As they attack the pilgrims who are on deck, Marlow blows the steamer's horn to frighten the natives before sailing away. Even though they are not the ones considered "savage", the pilgrims wanted to stay for the sake of killing more natives.

From Quiz Heart of Darkness

Answer: Russian

The Russian man who cared for Mr. Kurtz takes his leave asking Marlow for a pair of shoes, some cartridges, and a handful of tobacco. He makes his way onward through the jungle towards a prospective military camp. That night Marlow follows Mr. Kurtz into the jungle to where the man is to approach what seems to be a jungle sorcerer. Marlow tries to talk him out of visiting this man from afar, but Kurtz claims to know what he's doing. It is then that Marlow witnesses the undoing of the man's soul as the darkness of the jungle envelops them. Marlow is able to return Kurtz to his hut by the river and then, the following day, place him into the pilot-house of the steamboat. With the natives watching from the shore, the men aboard the boat sail away.

From Quiz Conrad: Secret Sharer and Heart of Darkness

Answer: The horror, the horror

Kurtz's last words are "the horror, the horror." Whether it is from being ashamed, or from great wisdom, or from some sort of pain, these are his words. Marlow admires this. However, he tells Kurtz's girlfriend that it was her name that was pronounced as Kurtz's last words.

From Quiz The Secret Agent

Answer: Triangle

He is set up in complete contrast to Stevie.

From Quiz Heart of Darkness

Answer: At Marlow's feet

When he is struck by a makeshift arrow, he falls at Marlow's feet, getting his shoes bloody. Marlow is disgusted, more than anything else, at the fact that he has to throw his shoes overboard.

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