Joseph Conrad - Man and Writer in the "House of Darkness" Joseph Conrad grew up in the Polish Ukraine, a large, fertile plain between Poland and Russia. It was a divided nation, with four languages, four religions, and a number of different classes. A fraction of the Polish-speaking inhabitants, including Conrad's family, belonged to the szlachta, a hereditary class below the aristocracy, which combined qualities of gentry and nobility. They had the political power, despite …showed first 75 words of 3004 total…

…showed last 75 words of 3004 total…passenger aboard the Thames ship, who does nothing in our eyes except play dominoes. Both together constitute a crew of gentility, which contrasts with the crew from Marlow's Congo ship. Narrator: an unnamed passenger aboard the Thames ship, he provides a structure for Marlow's story, and is a stand-in for audience perspective and participation. He was once a sailor, and he seems to be very affected by Kurtz's tale, due to a somewhat romantic nature.