Résumé
Résumé de Un paria des îles
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À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
You will enjoy this if you like sea adventure, tropical settings, vivid portraits of flawed people, and stories where pride, love and loyalty collide.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Picture a man walking home at night, drunk on his own success, watching his shadow glide ahead of him down a moonlit road. He is Peter Willems, confidential clerk of Hudig and Company in Macassar, and he has nearly repaid what he stole. Within days he loses his post, his house, his wife and every friend he thought he had.
An Outcast of the Islands is the second novel of Joseph Conrad, published in 1896. The idea came from a real man he glimpsed at a river settlement, shunned by everyone and almost silent. You get a story of pride and its price among traders, pirates and schemers on a hidden river.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A proud clerk steps off the honest pathFree
- 2Disgrace at home and a wife who turns
- 3Lingard rescues Willems for the second time
- 4Sambir is a prison made of mud and heat
- 5Schemers on the river wait for their man
- 6A woman in the forest takes Willems whole
- 7Willems sells the river and the trust it holds
- 8The old order of Sambir falls in a day
- 9Pride, race and love make one tangled trap
- 10How Conrad tells a story of loneliness
Point clé 1 sur 10
A proud clerk steps off the honest path
The novel opens on Willems at the peak of his vanity. He is thirty years old, the trusted clerk of Hudig, and he believes he has won the game of life. He has a pretty house, a wife named Joanna, a small son, and her relations, the Da Souza family, who live on his money. Their praise is the thing he loves most.
He explains his creed across hotel tables. Scruples are for weak men, and a clever man pushes trade to the edge of the law. Then losses at cards and constant demands push him to borrow from the firm's cash. He tells himself it is a brief detour and that he will repay every coin.
But he is watched. Vinck, the cashier, decides that Willems knows too much and must be got rid of. Willems judges his own theft with the kindness a man gives to the weaknesses of genius. A fall seldom begins with a big crime. It begins with a comfortable excuse, repeated until it sounds like wisdom.
A man who calls his own theft a small error has already begun to fall.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
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About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 100,100 words
- Reading timeAbout 7 h
Questions about Un paria des îles
What is An Outcast of the Islands about?
It follows Peter Willems, a vain clerk in the Dutch East Indies, who steals from his employer and is hidden by Captain Lingard in the river settlement of Sambir, where love for a Malay woman draws him into betrayal.
Who is Aissa in An Outcast of the Islands?
She is the proud daughter of the blind old pirate Omar el Badavi. She meets Willems by a forest stream, and her love and ambition shape his fate and her own.
Is An Outcast of the Islands connected to Almayer's Folly?
Yes. It is Conrad's second novel and its events come before Almayer's Folly in time. Kaspar Almayer and Captain Lingard appear in both, so each story adds to the other.
When was An Outcast of the Islands written and where is it set?
Conrad published it in 1896. It is set in the Malay Archipelago, from the port of Macassar to the fictional river settlement of Sambir. The story is invented, though drawn from his years as a seaman.
What is the main message of An Outcast of the Islands?
The novel shows how pride and self-deception lead people into ruin, and how love, race and loneliness shape what we see in each other. It asks what a man owes to those who help him.
Cite this edition
Conrad, Joseph. An Outcast of the Islands. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/an-outcast-of-the-islands.
Conrad, J. (2026). An outcast of the islands. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/an-outcast-of-the-islands (Original work published 1896)
Conrad, Joseph. An Outcast of the Islands. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/an-outcast-of-the-islands.
@book{conrad2026outcast,
author = {Conrad, Joseph},
title = {An Outcast of the Islands},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/an-outcast-of-the-islands},
note = {First published 1896}
}
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