The tale starts in first person narrative mode. The un-named narrator is a friend of the mate of the Sapphire Winston Bunter, and he is present in the restaurant conversation where the story begins. In fact Conrad rather coyly signals his presence in his own account of events.
There was also a very young shipmaster, with a little fair moustache and serious eyes, who said nothing, and only smiled faintly from time to time.
But on Bunter’s voyage aboard the Sapphire to Calcutta and back, events are presented in third person omniscient narrative mode, with the thoughts and feelings of the secondary and tertiary characters fully expressed.
Then when Bunter nears home and his wife inherits the money, the narrator suddenly reappears to present the conclusion to the story as a first person narrative again.
Conrad offers no explanation of how the information in the central part of the story reaches us, nor any persuasive logical reason why there should be two narrative modes at work in the one tale.
None of this would be terribly important were it not for the fact that Conrad has become celebrated for his inventive use of narrators and the complex structure of his tales and novels. But the fact is that he often makes mistakes in the logic and the narrative paths by which information reaches the reader – and this is an early example of that weakness, which is worth noting.
He also sometimes plays fast and lose with the conventions of tale-telling – as he does here. The narrator knows perfectly well at the outset of the tale why Bunter’s hair is so black, yet he conceals the fact from the reader with teasing hints that Bunter has a secret (without revealing what it is). In fact it is the narrator who advises Bunter to dye his hair in the first place. This device reduces the story to not much more than an elaborate and delayed joke.
The tale starts in first person narrative mode. The un-named narrator is a friend of the mate of the Sapphire Winston Bunter, and he is present in the restaurant conversation where the story begins. In fact Conrad rather coyly signals his presence in his own account of events.There was also a very young shipmaster, with a little fair moustache and serious eyes, who said nothing, and only smiled faintly from time to time.But on Bunter’s voyage aboard the Sapphire to Calcutta and back, events are presented in third person omniscient narrative mode, with the thoughts and feelings of the secondary and tertiary characters fully expressed.Then when Bunter nears home and his wife inherits the money, the narrator suddenly reappears to present the conclusion to the story as a first person narrative again.Conrad offers no explanation of how the information in the central part of the story reaches us, nor any persuasive logical reason why there should be two narrative modes at work in the one tale.None of this would be terribly important were it not for the fact that Conrad has become celebrated for his inventive use of narrators and the complex structure of his tales and novels. But the fact is that he often makes mistakes in the logic and the narrative paths by which information reaches the reader – and this is an early example of that weakness, which is worth noting.He also sometimes plays fast and lose with the conventions of tale-telling – as he does here. The narrator knows perfectly well at the outset of the tale why Bunter’s hair is so black, yet he conceals the fact from the reader with teasing hints that Bunter has a secret (without revealing what it is). In fact it is the narrator who advises Bunter to dye his hair in the first place. This device reduces the story to not much more than an elaborate and delayed joke.
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