Victory by Joseph Conrad

First published: 1915

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Psychological realism

Time of plot: Early twentieth century

Locale: East Indies

Principal characters

• Axel Heyst, an idealist
• Lena, a woman whom Axel befriends
• Mr. Schomberg, a hotel owner
• Mr. Jones and Martin Ricardo, gamblers
• Pedro, their servant
• Davidson, a sea captain
• Wang, Heyst’s servant

The Story:

After the Tropical Belt Coal Company goes into liquidation, Axel Heyst continues to live at the No. 1 coaling station on Samburan. Strange in his manners and desires, he is a legend among the islanders; they call him a Utopist. The coal company came into existence after Heyst met an Englishman named Morrison in a Portuguese seaport, where the man was about to lose his trading ship, Capricorn, because of an unpaid debt. Heyst was sympathetic and offered him a loan. Because Heyst was anxious to keep his generosity a secret and Morrison eager to conceal his shaky finances, the two men pledged secrecy, with the understanding that Heyst would thereafter have a share of the Capricorn’s shipping business.

Schomberg, the owner of a hotel in Sourabaya, heard of the partnership and discovered that Heyst maintained some kind of hold over Morrison. Morrison established the coal company and then died in England. After that, Schomberg, who hated Heyst, constructed a mysterious kind of villainy around him and was gleeful when the coal company liquidated.

After Heyst retires from the human society of the islands, Davidson, a ship’s captain, comes upon him living alone on Samburan. Worrying over Heyst’s welfare, Davidson adopts the habit of sailing ten miles out of his way around the north side of Samburan in case Heyst is in need of aid. At one point, Davidson brings Heyst to Sourabaya, where he stays at Schomberg’s hotel. Later, Davidson hears bits of a story that Heyst ran off with a girl who was at the hotel with a troupe of entertainers. He is baffled that the shy, quiet Heyst would take a girl back to Samburan with him. Mrs. Schomberg pities the girl and helps Heyst escape with her. The affair causes quite a bit of gossip on the island because it concerns Heyst.

When Heyst came to the hotel, he was unaware of Schomberg’s hatred. The entertainers were not very attractive to Heyst’s fastidious mind, but one girl wearing white muslin seemed younger than the others. Noticing her distress at being ordered to join a guest at a table, Heyst was prompted by the same instinct that led him to help Morrison. He invited the girl to sit with him. The girl, Lena, told Heyst about herself. While she was growing up in England, her father taught her to play the violin. After his death, she joined the group of entertainers with whom she now worked. Schomberg had been stalking her ever since the troupe came to the hotel. The contrast between Heyst and the other men she met was enough to cause the girl to be attracted to her new friend, and she welcomed his promise of help. After Heyst took Lena away, Schomberg’s hatred was tremendous.

Three strangers then come to Schomberg’s hotel: Mr. Jones, Martin Ricardo, and a beastlike, hairy creature whom they call Pedro. Before long, these men transform Schomberg’s hotel into a professional gambling house. Schomberg’s obsession for Lena is increased by his belief that, if he has her at his side, he can rid his hotel of the gamblers. One afternoon, Ricardo tells Schomberg that he was employed on a yacht where he was first attracted by Jones’s polished manners. The two stole the captain’s cash box and jumped ship. Later, Pedro became attached to them. Schomberg decides that these thieves might leave his hotel if he can arouse their greed by the prospect of richer plunder. He offhandedly tells the men of Heyst’s alleged wealth and mentions that Heyst lives on a lonely island with a girl and a hoard of money. Together, Ricardo and Schomberg begin to plan their pillage of the island on which Heyst lives.

On his island, Heyst lives with his Chinese servant, Wang, until Lena joins him. She tells him that he saved her from more than misery and despair. Heyst tells her the story of his own background. His father was a cynical, domineering man whom he disliked. After his death, Heyst drifts, searching for some meaning in life, a meaning never glimpsed until he meets Lena.

One evening, Wang announces that he saw a boat drifting offshore; Heyst goes to investigate. He discovers Ricardo, Jones, and the beastlike Pedro perishing of thirst in a boat moored beside a small jetty. Heyst helps the men to shore and takes them to an abandoned bungalow for temporary quarters. That night, Heyst finds that his gun is missing from his desk; Wang, frightened, took it. Meanwhile, Ricardo and Jones speculate about locating Heyst’s money.

Early in the morning, Ricardo steals into Heyst’s bungalow and sees Lena combing her hair. He jumps at her hungrily, but she is able to defend herself. When the struggle is over and the repulsed man sees that she raises no outcry, his admiration for her increases. She asks him what the men want on the island. Surprised that they came for money that she knows Heyst does not possess, she is determined to protect Heyst from Schomberg’s evil plan. She loves Heyst and knows she can repay his kindness by leading Ricardo and his partners on to their destruction.

Observing Ricardo’s attack on Lena, Wang decides to withdraw from this confusion of white people’s affairs; he flees to the forest. When Heyst reports the loss of his servant to Jones and Ricardo, they offer him the service of Pedro. Because their manner makes it impossible for him to refuse, Lena and Heyst know that they are lost. Davidson will not sail past the island for three more weeks. Their only weapon was stolen, and they are left defenseless. When Heyst mentions their helpless position without a weapon of defense, Lena recalls that, during their scuffle, she glimpsed the knife Ricardo wears under his trouser leg.

That night, Ricardo comes to the bungalow for dinner with Heyst and Lena. During the evening, Ricardo indicates that Jones wants Heyst to visit him. Before he leaves, Heyst insists that Pedro be sent out of the way, and Ricardo orders the brute to go down to the jetty. After Heyst leaves, Lena allows Ricardo to make love to her so that she can take possession of his knife. Meanwhile, Heyst mentions Lena’s presence to Jones. Jones, who suffers a pathological hatred for women, did not even know of Lena’s existence. Heyst convinces him that Schomberg lied about the existence of a cache of money on the island to get rid of the gamblers and to inflict revenge upon Heyst, a revenge that Schomberg is too cowardly to inflict himself. Enraged by what he considers a conspiracy on the part of Ricardo and Schomberg, Jones suggests that they go to Heyst’s bungalow.

Meanwhile, Lena takes Ricardo’s knife. As the two men enter the bungalow, Jones fires over Heyst’s shoulder, and the bullet pierces Lena’s breast. Ricardo springs through the doorway. Jones follows his partner outside and shoots him in the darkness. Heyst carries Lena to the bed, and, as she lies there, deathly pale in the candlelight, she demands the knife, her symbol of victory. She dies as Heyst takes her in his arms, speaking, for the first time, words that come from the depths of his heart.

Bibliography

Gillon, Adam. The Eternal Solitary: A Study of Joseph Conrad. New York: Bookman, 1960. Explores the key role that isolation played in Conrad’s life and work. Presents Victory as a melodrama that effectively discusses, in symbolic terms, the nature of solitude and its consequences.

Johnson, Bruce. Conrad’s Models of Mind. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971. Explores Conrad’s continual readjustment of his fictions to fit changing philosophical models of human behavior and motivation. Discusses the way Victory reassesses the individual’s need for human solidarity and community.

Meyers, Jeffrey. Joseph Conrad: A Biography. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1991. A highly readable critical biography. Discusses Victory as Conrad’s most misunderstood, underrated, and controversial novel, its theme being the failure of love in an idyllic setting.

Moser, Thomas. “Conrad’s ’Later Affirmation.’” In Conrad: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Marvin Mudrick. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966. Explores the role chance plays in Conrad’s later novels, particularly Victory, and how it makes the novels’ apparent affirmations more evasive.

Peters, John G. The Cambridge Introduction to Joseph Conrad. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. An introductory overview of Conrad, with information on his life, all of his works, and his critical reception.

Robert, Andrew Michael. Conrad and Masculinity. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. Uses modern theories about masculinity to analyze Conrad’s work and explore the relationship of masculinity to imperialism and modernity. Victory is discussed in the chapter entitled “Vision and the Economies of Empire and Masculinity: Victory.”

Sherry, Norman, ed. Conrad: The Critical Heritage. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973. An impressive collection of responses to Conrad’s work at the time it first appeared. The section devoted to Victory gives insight into Conrad’s critical reputation and the novel’s reception in the midst of World War I.

Stape, J. H., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Collection of essays discussing Conrad’s life and analyzing his work, including discussions of the Conradian narrative, Conrad and imperialism, Conrad and modernism, and Conrad’s literary influence. The many references to Victory are listed in the index.