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Revision as of 08:29, 23 September 2006
Almayer's Folly is Joseph Conrad's first novel and was published in 1895. The novel centers on the Dutch trader Kaspar Almayer and the events leading to and surrounding his life in the jungles of Borneo. It is set in the late 1800's.
Plot summary
Template:Spoilers As Marlow says in the Conrad's novel Lord Jim, facts are inadequate to explaining the inner life of a human being. However, a summary of the facts of the novel can be recited.
Kaspar Almayer is a Dutch merchant taken under the wing of the wealthy Captain Lingard. Desirious of one day inheriting Captain Lingard's wealth the young Almayer agrees to marry his adopted Malay child and run Lingard's trading post in Sambir in the jungles of Borneo. The marriage is loveless, Captain Lingard loses much of his fortune searching for a hidden treasure, and Almayer's ventures continually fail-most notably an expansive trading house that no one comes to trade in. However a child named Nina is begotten from Almayer and his wife. The rest of the novel concerns Almayer's conflicting desires. His love for his daughter and trying to keep her from the Malayian influence of her mother and Almayer's desire for money and self-redemption take center stage. A Malay prince called Dain enters Sambir. Though Almayer tries to use the prince to help him find the treasure long sought after by Lingard, instead Dain is betrothed to Nina and leaves Sambir with his daughter and his aid but not his blessing. The loss of Nina and potential wealth stuns Almayer and he spends the rest of his days in the empty trading house he built as his sanity slips away.
Themes
Isolation, colonialism, desire, and the overarching question of what is Almayer's folly all make for interesting discussion points.
Sources
Conrad, Joseph. Almayer's Folly: A Story of an Eastern River. Random House. 1996.
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