The Tale (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Joseph Conrad
- First Published: 1917
- Type of Plot: Psychological
- Time of Work: World War I
- Setting: At sea
- Principal Characters: The commanding officer, The Northman, The woman
- Genres: Psychological fiction, Short fiction
- Subjects: 1910’s, War, World War I, Ships, Sailing or sailors, Sea or seafaring life, Shipwrecks
- Locales: Oceans
The Story
Twilight is falling through the window of a long, gloomy room. In the gathering darkness, a woman asks her companion, a man of the sea, for a tale. He begins, awkwardly, deliberately, reminding her that what he is about to relate is a story of duty, war, and horror.
During the early days of the “bad” war, a commanding officer—the narrator himself—is taking his ship past a dangerous rocky coast. The weather is foul, a thick, impenetrable fog obscuring the coast so that the commanding officer can see nothing and can only sense the danger before him. What...
[The entire page is 1306 words long]
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