Story summary
Trama e riassunto di La linea d’ombra
- 8 min di lettura
- 9 parts
- Audio a breve
A young mate quits a good ship for no reason and is handed a command with a dead captain's curse.
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La linea d’ombra in breve
Riassunto: 8 min di lettura
- Tempo di lettura
- Circa 2 h 40 min2 h 5 min fast, 3 h 10 min slow
- Durata
- 37.600 parole
- Livello nella biblioteca
- Facile short sentences, plain words
- Prima pubblicazione
- 1917by Joseph Conrad
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Quanto tempo ci vuole per leggere i classici · Aggiornato
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La linea d’ombra in short
The Shadow Line tells how a young officer leaves a good ship out of restlessness, gets a command through the odd kindness of an old captain, and finds himself in charge of a ship that is sick and becalmed. The first half is bright with comedy. The second half goes quiet and strange, and it tests the narrator to his limit.
What La linea d’ombra is about
What makes a young man walk away from a ship he loves, with no reason he can name? That is how The Shadow Line begins. Its narrator, a first mate in an Eastern port, quits a good berth on a whim, and within a day he holds a command he never dreamed of.
Joseph Conrad wrote this short novel from his own years as a seaman, and he dedicated it to his son Borys. You meet a kindly old expert, a chief mate haunted by his dead captain, and a cook with a bad heart. You get the shape of the story and its main ideas, up to the edge of its ending.
A chi è rivolto. This book is for readers who love sea stories with a thoughtful voice, for anyone drawn to first commands and the moment youth ends, and for those who enjoy suspense in calm water.
The story in 9 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A restless young officer quits a good ship
The story opens with a thought about youth. The narrator says there is a time of life when a person has left boyhood behind and sees, far ahead, a shadow line warning that early youth must be left behind too. In that stretch people grow bored and act rashly. Some marry on a whim. Some quit a job for no good reason.
He did the second. He was first mate on a steamship in an Eastern port, with a captain and shipmates he could not have bettered. Yet one day everything lost its flavour, and he asked to be paid off. His captain stared at him, then smiled and wished him luck in finding whatever he was looking for. His friends offered their own cures, from marriage jokes to patent medicine for a disordered liver. He could not explain himself to any of them.
So he goes to the Officers' Home to wait for a mail boat. He is cut loose and sulky, and sure that nothing can surprise him.
A young person's sudden discontent is often the first sign that something larger is asking to begin.
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A sly old captain steers him toward a command
At the Home the narrator meets a small, miserable Chief Steward, a proud loafer named Hamilton, and a kindly, heavy man named Captain Giles.
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A command arrives and a ship waits upriver
Command is a powerful magic, the narrator says, and it carries him to the Harbour Office as if on wings.
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The dead captain's shadow and a haunted mate
In the saloon the narrator sits in the captain's chair, under a small compass, and feels a line of earlier captains behind him.
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Delay and fever hold the ship in the river
The first trouble is not the sea but the shore.
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A sea without wind and a ship growing sick
The ship leaves on the thinnest of breezes.
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Youth ends at the shadow line
The title names the book's central idea, the line a young person crosses without knowing it.
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Command means duty, fear and the strength of others
The second theme is what command asks of a person.
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How the story is told, and why it grips
The tale is told in the first person by the man who lived it, looking back from a distance.
Read all 9 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- The narrator A young first mate who quits a good ship on impulse, then takes command of a sailing ship in Bangkok and faces his first test.
- Captain Giles A stout, shrewd old expert on the Archipelago who looks like a churchwarden and quietly steers the narrator toward his command.
- Captain Ellis The formidable harbour master whom the narrator calls a deputy Neptune wants a capable captain for a ship that has lost her master.
- Mr. Burns The gaunt chief mate with a red moustache who brought the ship to port and is haunted by his dead captain's last wishes.
- Ransome The calm, skilled ship's cook who carries a weak heart and still does more than any man aboard.
- Gambril A stern grey-haired seaman, one of the crew who keeps to the wheel even as fever wastes his strength.
- Frenchy A short, red-haired, jaunty sailor who insists he still has some fight left in him as sickness spreads.
How it ends (spoiler)
The medicine the captain trusted turns out to be worthless, and the crew sinks deeper into fever. A sudden darkness and a heavy rain break the calm, and Burns's wild laugh seems to break the spell. The ship runs south before the wind, and the captain, Burns and Ransome bring her to the roadstead of Singapore. The crew goes to hospital, none dead. Ransome leaves, afraid for his heart.
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Domande su La linea d’ombra
What is The Shadow Line about?
It follows a young officer who quits a ship on a whim and is given his first command, a sailing ship at Bangkok. Becalmed in the Gulf of Siam with a sick crew, he learns what responsibility means.
What does the shadow line mean in the book?
It is the border between early youth and adult life. The narrator sees a shadow line ahead where the carefree country of youth must be left behind, and his first command carries him across it.
Is The Shadow Line based on a true story?
Conrad drew on his own years as a merchant seaman, and the book is built from real sea experience. It is a work of fiction, though, and its haunting elements are told in a way that leaves them open.
Is The Shadow Line easy to read?
Yes, in the sense of its approachable shape. The book is short, told by a lively first-person voice, and moves in clear scenes from harbour comedy to the quiet suspense of a ship on a windless sea.
Who is Ransome in The Shadow Line?
Ransome is the ship's cook, a calm and skilled sailor with a weak heart. He does the work of several men aboard and becomes the captain's steadiest support during the long calm.
Cita questa edizione
Conrad, Joseph. The Shadow Line. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-shadow-line.
Conrad, J. (2026). The shadow line. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-shadow-line (Original work published 1917)
Conrad, Joseph. The Shadow Line. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-shadow-line.
@book{conrad2026shadow,
author = {Conrad, Joseph},
title = {The Shadow Line},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-shadow-line},
note = {First published 1917}
}
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