Karain: A Memory

The story was Conrad's first story commissioned for Blackwood's Magazine, popularly known as the Maga. It was based on the Polish folktale "Czaty" by Adam Mickiewicz.Conrad 2008, p. xi.

The story is told through a double frame narrative.Peters, p. 49. An unnamed narrator encounters Karain, a haunted Malay chief, on a schooner. Karain recounts his past in the form of a story. The narrative centres on Karain's loyalty to his friend Pata Matara, who seeks to restore his family's honour by killing his sister, who eloped with a Dutch trader. Karain and Matara travel for many years, during which Karain is haunted by the sister's vision. Eventually they find the sister and Dutchman. Matara orders to Karain to shoot the Dutchman, while he kills his sister. But at the fatal moment, Karain kills Matara, saving the others' lives. Karain then states that he is haunted by the ghost of his dead friend. Karain asks the crew of the schooner to help him put an end to the haunting. One of the crew give him a gilded sixpence,The coin is a Jubilee coinage silver sixpence, gilded to look like a half-sovereign, a coin 20 times as valuable [Conrad 2008, p. 195]. telling him that it is a charm. Karain accepts the charm and believes that he has finally been exorcised. The story ends with a coda, in which the narrator and one of the crew meet in London, and reflect on the story they have been told.

• Imperialism: "Karain" is one of Conrad's early published works, and the first to deal with British imperialism explicitly. GoGwilt, p. 78

David Finkelstein notes that "there is nothing in the piece to disturb the general tenor of Maga's presentation of Empire".Finkelstein, p. 34

Christopher GoGwilt notes that while the story "contains all the ingredients of the imperial adventure tale" popularised by writers such as H. Rider Haggard, Conrad "ultimately produced a tale that turns its popular material against the assumptions of the genre". GoGwilt also states that Conrad's attempt to represent "native" Malay experience is a nearly unique feature of the text amongst Conrad's oeuvre.GoGwilt, pp. 86-7

{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

• {{cite journal | last=Adams | first=David | title="Remorse and Power": Conrad's Karain and the Queen | journal=Modern Fiction Studies | publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press | volume=47 | issue=4 | year=2001 | issn=0026-7724 | jstor=26286495 | pages=723–752 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/26286495 | access-date=2024-04-27}}

• {{cite book | last=Conrad | first=Joseph | title=Heart of Darkness and Other Tales | publisher=OUP Oxford | publication-place=Oxford | date=2008-05-08 | isbn=978-0-19-953601-6}}

• {{cite journal | last=Conroy | first=Mark | title=Ghostwriting (In) 'Karain' | journal=The Conradian | publisher=Joseph Conrad Society UK | volume=18 | issue=2 | year=1994 | issn=0951-2314 | jstor=20874053 | pages=1–16 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/20874053 | access-date=2024-04-27}}

• {{cite journal | last=Finkelstein | first=David | title=Decent Company: Conrad | journal=Conradiana | publisher=Texas Tech University Press | volume=41 | issue=1 | year=2009 | issn=0010-6356 | jstor=24635191 | pages=29–47 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/24635191 | access-date=2024-04-27}}

• {{cite journal | last=Gogwilt | first=Christopher | title=The Charm of Empire: Joseph Conrad's | journal=Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature | publisher=University of Manitoba | volume=24 | issue=1 | year=1991 | jstor=24780696 | pages=77–91 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/24780696 | access-date=2024-04-27}}

• {{cite journal | last=Herbert | first=Wray C. | title=Conrad's Psychic Landscape: The Mythic Element in "Karain"| journal=Conradiana | publisher=Texas Tech University Press | volume=8 | issue=3 | year=1976 | issn=0010-6356 | jstor=24633918 | pages=225–232 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/24633918 | access-date=2024-04-27}}

• {{cite journal |last1=Paccaud |first1=Josiane |title=The "Obscure Odyssey" of the Object in Conrad's "Karain" |journal=Fathom |date=2019 |volume=6 |issue=6 |doi=10.4000/fathom.1416}}

• {{cite book |last1=Peters |first1=John |title=The Cambridge Introduction to Joseph Conrad |date=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press}}

• {{cite journal | last=Watts | first=Cedric | title=Fraudulent Signifiers: Saussure and the Sixpence in | journal=The Conradian | publisher=Joseph Conrad Society UK | volume=28 | issue=2 | year=2003 | issn=0951-2314 | jstor=20874225 | pages=12–28 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/20874225 | access-date=2024-04-27}}

• {{gutenberg| no=1202 |title=Tales of Unrest}} (containing Karain)
• Original text in [https://archive.org/details/blackwoodsmagazi162edinuoft/page/630/mode/2up Blackwood's Magazine]

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Category:1897 short stories

Category:Short stories by Joseph Conrad

Category:Works originally published in Blackwood's Magazine