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February 27, 1962. IDENTITY AND JOSEPH CONRAD. Edward D. Joseph, M.D.
Based on an examination of Conrad's life, personality, and the principal themes in his work, the author attempts to show that the artist 'has created a world, not indulged in a daydream'. Conrad's writings represent not merely a working out of underlying fantasies, but the creation of a new world giving an 'identity' beyond his own actual experience.
Joseph Conrad was an only child. His father, an improvident revolutionary, was arrested and sent with his family into exile; his mother died when he was about eight. Following the mother's death he became a lonely child who read avidly. He began his sea voyages at the age of sixteen, after his father's death, his great ambition being to sail on an English ship and to learn the English language. At thirty-eight he married an English woman and settled down to a writing career. He was subject to unpredictable rages and was regarded as a man of sensibility, dreamy temperament, and gloomy disposition.
The depressive elements in Conrad's character are related to the early deaths