Real-world generalizations in Conrad's third-person narratives

Abstract

And Captain MacWhirr wrote home from the coast of China twelve times every year, desiring quaintly to be “remembered to the children,” and subscribing himself “your loving husband,” as calmly as if the words so long used by so many men were, apart from their shape, worn-out things, and of a faded meaning. The China seas north and south are narrow seas. They are seas full of every-day, eloquent facts, such as islands, sand-banks, reefs, swift and changeable currents – tangled facts that nevertheless speak to a seaman in clear and definite language. Their speech appealed to Captain MacWhirr’s sense of realities so forcibly that he had given up his state-room below and practically lived all his days on the bridge of his ship, often having his meals sent up, and sleeping at night in the chart-room. (Conrad 1950, 15)