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Οι ηλίθιοι
Μια πραγματική ιστορία που διαδραματίστηκε λίγο πριν από τη Γαλλική Επανάσταση, σε μια αγροτική περιοχή της βορειοδυτικής Γαλλίας, την Βρετάνη, μια περιοχή με έντονες ιδιαιτερότητες που χάνονται στο βάθος του χρόνου, είναι ο πυρήνας της μικρής αυτής ιστορίας που μας αφηγείται ο συγγραφέας.
Βασικά πρόσωπα του αφηγήματός μας είναι ο Ζαν-Πιερ Μπακαντού και η γυναίκα του και το δράμα μας εκτυλίσσεται μέσα στην οικογένειά τους και τον περίγυρό της. Αφορμή του δράματος αυτού είναι το γεγονός ότι όλα τα παιδιά της οικογένειας του Ζαν-Πιερ που έρχονται στον κόσμο είναι διανοητικά καθυστερημένα, κάτι που είναι αφόρητο για την μικρή κοινωνία του χωριού. Αιτία όμως του δράματος, όπως φαίνεται μέσα από την μοναδική διήγηση του Τζόζεφ Κόνραντ είναι οι συνθήκες που κυριαρχούσαν στην γαλλική κοινωνία λίγο πριν την επανάσταση, οι συνθήκες που επέβαλαν την Γαλλική Επανάσταση.
Βασικά πρόσωπα του αφηγήματός μας είναι ο Ζαν-Πιερ Μπακαντού και η γυναίκα του και το δράμα μας εκτυλίσσεται μέσα στην οικογένειά τους και τον περίγυρό της. Αφορμή του δράματος αυτού είναι το γεγονός ότι όλα τα παιδιά της οικογένειας του Ζαν-Πιερ που έρχονται στον κόσμο είναι διανοητικά καθυστερημένα, κάτι που είναι αφόρητο για την μικρή κοινωνία του χωριού. Αιτία όμως του δράματος, όπως φαίνεται μέσα από την μοναδική διήγηση του Τζόζεφ Κόνραντ είναι οι συνθήκες που κυριαρχούσαν στην γαλλική κοινωνία λίγο πριν την επανάσταση, οι συνθήκες που επέβαλαν την Γαλλική Επανάσταση.
128 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1896
8 people are currently reading
84 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Conrad
3,173 books4,899 followersJoseph Conrad was a Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language and, although he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he became a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote novels and stories, many in nautical settings, that depict crises of human individuality in the midst of what he saw as an indifferent, inscrutable, and amoral world.
Conrad is considered a literary impressionist by some and an early modernist by others, though his works also contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters, as in Lord Jim, for example, have influenced numerous authors. Many dramatic films have been adapted from and inspired by his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that his fictional works, written largely in the first two decades of the 20th century, seem to have anticipated later world events.
Writing near the peak of the British Empire, Conrad drew on the national experiences of his native Poland—during nearly all his life, parceled out among three occupying empires—and on his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world—including imperialism and colonialism—and that profoundly explore the human psyche.
Conrad is considered a literary impressionist by some and an early modernist by others, though his works also contain elements of 19th-century realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters, as in Lord Jim, for example, have influenced numerous authors. Many dramatic films have been adapted from and inspired by his works. Numerous writers and critics have commented that his fictional works, written largely in the first two decades of the 20th century, seem to have anticipated later world events.
Writing near the peak of the British Empire, Conrad drew on the national experiences of his native Poland—during nearly all his life, parceled out among three occupying empires—and on his own experiences in the French and British merchant navies, to create short stories and novels that reflect aspects of a European-dominated world—including imperialism and colonialism—and that profoundly explore the human psyche.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
March 1, 2017
”When They Sleep They Are Like Other People’s Children.”
Conrad has never been exactly what you would call the guarantee of a cheerful read, but his short story The Idiots, which was first published in 1896, is even particularly bleak by Conradian standards, and it shows that the Heart of Darkness can even lie hidden beneath the clods of the Breton countryside. Conrad’s tendency for gloomy and pessimistic subjects might become even more obvious when you consider that he wrote that story when he was actually honeymooning in Britanny – most people tend to see life in a sunny light during their honeymoon – and when during an excursion the driver pointed out four mentally handicapped children and said that they were all born to the same family.
The Idiots tells us about a farmer, Jean-Pierre Bacadou, who, after returning from the war, finds that his parents no longer manage the farm very efficiently, and in order to take over from them, Bacadou gets married and wants to have a family of his own. When his first two boys – twins – are born, the joy experienced in the household is but of short-lived duration as it becomes evident that both children are mentally handicapped and will never be able to take over the farm from their father. Bacadou has firmly set his mind on a male heir, however, and so, in the course of the next few years, makes his wife give birth to two more children, who suffer from the same mental impairment. Instead of accepting the idea that his farm will one day pass on to someone of only remote kin, Bacadou finds this an infuriating prospect and again wants to force his wife to have yet another child but his attempt at raping her starts a chain of fateful events.
In the hands of a lesser author, the plot of The Idiots would have become a trite didactic story with a moral, but Conrad makes it very ambiguous and includes various motifs that preclude us from pigeonholing the characters and what they stand for. This ambiguity already starts with the change of perspective we experience in this story, which is, at first, told from the outside by an unnamed first person narrator, who sees the four mentally retarded adolescents by the roadside and later learns the story behind them. When the story is told, its first part is closer to the point of view of Bacadou, allowing us to share his worries about the farm and its future, but the second part is given from the perspective of his desperate wife, who is probably repeatedly raped by her husband and finally only sees one way out of her predicament. The final lines of the story then are rather from an omniscient point of view, telling us something the first person narrator couldn’t possibly have known, and making the reader shudder at the callousness of the Marquis de Chavanes.
Another device that makes this short story such a very compelling read is the contrast between the soil and the sea that is conjured up here. Conrad presents the Bacadous as typical farmers, stubborn, firm of purpose, not given to strong emotions, and in this he likens them to the soil they cultivate. From this point of view, one can even understand Bacadou’s embitterment:
When his wife later tries to flee the consequences of her deed of despair, she runs towards the sea, but the sea, dark and raging, only brings death. It’s quite impressive to see how Conrad paints an image of hostile nature in this story, for example when Susan Bacadou slides down a pebbly slope:
Add to this the mental anguish Susan experiences, which is enhanced by the curse of an unfeeling, greedy and calculating mother, and your sympathies will have moved from Bacadou to his wife by the end of the story. However, it’s probably not all about sympathies, because for Conrad, most of the characters in this story could have passed for “idiots” – Bacadou, who has fixed his mind on a male heir since he cannot bear the thought of his house being less long-lasting than the fields he is master of; his mother-in-law, whose first thought is what her daughter’s crime might mean for her own position in the village; and even the Marquis of Chavanes, who is so afraid of atheists and anarchists infiltrating his commune. And given the glorious spectacle of the sombre sea and the unfeeling stillness of the dark earth, maybe all the tales told, however heart-rending and dismal they be, are “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.
Conrad has never been exactly what you would call the guarantee of a cheerful read, but his short story The Idiots, which was first published in 1896, is even particularly bleak by Conradian standards, and it shows that the Heart of Darkness can even lie hidden beneath the clods of the Breton countryside. Conrad’s tendency for gloomy and pessimistic subjects might become even more obvious when you consider that he wrote that story when he was actually honeymooning in Britanny – most people tend to see life in a sunny light during their honeymoon – and when during an excursion the driver pointed out four mentally handicapped children and said that they were all born to the same family.
The Idiots tells us about a farmer, Jean-Pierre Bacadou, who, after returning from the war, finds that his parents no longer manage the farm very efficiently, and in order to take over from them, Bacadou gets married and wants to have a family of his own. When his first two boys – twins – are born, the joy experienced in the household is but of short-lived duration as it becomes evident that both children are mentally handicapped and will never be able to take over the farm from their father. Bacadou has firmly set his mind on a male heir, however, and so, in the course of the next few years, makes his wife give birth to two more children, who suffer from the same mental impairment. Instead of accepting the idea that his farm will one day pass on to someone of only remote kin, Bacadou finds this an infuriating prospect and again wants to force his wife to have yet another child but his attempt at raping her starts a chain of fateful events.
In the hands of a lesser author, the plot of The Idiots would have become a trite didactic story with a moral, but Conrad makes it very ambiguous and includes various motifs that preclude us from pigeonholing the characters and what they stand for. This ambiguity already starts with the change of perspective we experience in this story, which is, at first, told from the outside by an unnamed first person narrator, who sees the four mentally retarded adolescents by the roadside and later learns the story behind them. When the story is told, its first part is closer to the point of view of Bacadou, allowing us to share his worries about the farm and its future, but the second part is given from the perspective of his desperate wife, who is probably repeatedly raped by her husband and finally only sees one way out of her predicament. The final lines of the story then are rather from an omniscient point of view, telling us something the first person narrator couldn’t possibly have known, and making the reader shudder at the callousness of the Marquis de Chavanes.
Another device that makes this short story such a very compelling read is the contrast between the soil and the sea that is conjured up here. Conrad presents the Bacadous as typical farmers, stubborn, firm of purpose, not given to strong emotions, and in this he likens them to the soil they cultivate. From this point of view, one can even understand Bacadou’s embitterment:
”He looked at the black earth, at the earth mute and promising, at the mysterious earth doing its work of life in death-like stillness under the veiled sorrow of the sky. And it seemed to him that to a man worse than childless there was no promise in the fertility of fields, that from him the earth escaped, defied him, frowned at him like the clouds, sombre and hurried above his head. Having to face alone his own fields, he felt the inferiority of man who passes away before the clod that remains.”
When his wife later tries to flee the consequences of her deed of despair, she runs towards the sea, but the sea, dark and raging, only brings death. It’s quite impressive to see how Conrad paints an image of hostile nature in this story, for example when Susan Bacadou slides down a pebbly slope:
”The shingle seemed to wake up; the pebbles began to roll before her, pursued her from above, raced down with her on both sides, rolling past with an increasing clatter.”
Add to this the mental anguish Susan experiences, which is enhanced by the curse of an unfeeling, greedy and calculating mother, and your sympathies will have moved from Bacadou to his wife by the end of the story. However, it’s probably not all about sympathies, because for Conrad, most of the characters in this story could have passed for “idiots” – Bacadou, who has fixed his mind on a male heir since he cannot bear the thought of his house being less long-lasting than the fields he is master of; his mother-in-law, whose first thought is what her daughter’s crime might mean for her own position in the village; and even the Marquis of Chavanes, who is so afraid of atheists and anarchists infiltrating his commune. And given the glorious spectacle of the sombre sea and the unfeeling stillness of the dark earth, maybe all the tales told, however heart-rending and dismal they be, are “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 4, 2020
Jean-Pierre Bacadou ao retornar da guerra percebe que sua fazenda está mal cuidada.Os pais já estão velhos , não conseguem dar conta do serviço.
Jean-Pierre Bacadou então resolve se casar com Suzanne para terem filhos que poderiam assumir a fazenda. Só que uma maldição muito grande irá assolar essa família, trazendo horror e morte.
Conto maravilhoso e imaginar que foi o primeiro conto de Joseph Conrad... Meu Deus que talento.
Spoiler*"*
Todos os filhos os 4 filhos de Jean-Pierre Bacadou nasceram com deficiência mental.
Quando os dois primeiros filhos nasceram com a deficiência ele até mudou de religião para ver se resolvia . Eles tiveram mais dois filhos com deficiência mental ,um menino e uma menina.
Jean-Pierre Bacadou não se conformava com isso, queria alguém para tomar conta da prioridade
Começaram a ocorrer brigas entre o casal. Ele se arrependeu de mudar de religião. Começou a bater em Suzanne. Até que um dia ele tentou estrupa -la à força, na tentativa de ter outro filho. Suzanne com uma grande tesoura mata o marido. Foge para junto da sua mãe , mas é desprezada. Pensando estar sendo perseguida pelo fantasma do marido , quando na verdade habitantes da região estavam tentando ajudá-la , se suicida se jogando do alto de um penhasco.
Uma história muito triste, mas cheia da genialidade de Joseph Conrad.
Jean-Pierre Bacadou então resolve se casar com Suzanne para terem filhos que poderiam assumir a fazenda. Só que uma maldição muito grande irá assolar essa família, trazendo horror e morte.
Conto maravilhoso e imaginar que foi o primeiro conto de Joseph Conrad... Meu Deus que talento.
Spoiler*"*
Todos os filhos os 4 filhos de Jean-Pierre Bacadou nasceram com deficiência mental.
Quando os dois primeiros filhos nasceram com a deficiência ele até mudou de religião para ver se resolvia . Eles tiveram mais dois filhos com deficiência mental ,um menino e uma menina.
Jean-Pierre Bacadou não se conformava com isso, queria alguém para tomar conta da prioridade
Começaram a ocorrer brigas entre o casal. Ele se arrependeu de mudar de religião. Começou a bater em Suzanne. Até que um dia ele tentou estrupa -la à força, na tentativa de ter outro filho. Suzanne com uma grande tesoura mata o marido. Foge para junto da sua mãe , mas é desprezada. Pensando estar sendo perseguida pelo fantasma do marido , quando na verdade habitantes da região estavam tentando ajudá-la , se suicida se jogando do alto de um penhasco.
Uma história muito triste, mas cheia da genialidade de Joseph Conrad.
December 8, 2020
αρκετα λυπηρό..
November 27, 2020
Free download available at Project Gutenebrg
I made the smooth-reading this book for Project Gutenberg and it will be published pretty soon.
In the short tale which follows the dominant qualities of the author are easily recognizable: exact observation and unerring choice of the essential feature in the presentation of characters and of facts, together with rigorous selection of the ‘right word’: in short, the faultless technique of Flaubert and of Maupassant; then, a deep sense of the mystery in which the human soul is wrapped; lastly, that great breath of tragedy which inspired Æschylus and Sophocles, and which, until the advent of Mr Conrad, had remained foreign to modern literature.
I made the smooth-reading this book for Project Gutenberg and it will be published pretty soon.
In the short tale which follows the dominant qualities of the author are easily recognizable: exact observation and unerring choice of the essential feature in the presentation of characters and of facts, together with rigorous selection of the ‘right word’: in short, the faultless technique of Flaubert and of Maupassant; then, a deep sense of the mystery in which the human soul is wrapped; lastly, that great breath of tragedy which inspired Æschylus and Sophocles, and which, until the advent of Mr Conrad, had remained foreign to modern literature.
June 30, 2012
A short story by Conrad, telling the unfortunate tale of a small farming family...
June 21, 2024
Conradın öykülerini başarılı buluyorum
November 2, 2016
This was such an unexpectedly sad tale. ***SPOILER ALERT*** The characters were fairly plain and their lives equally mundane, who would have thought having a couple of children would change their lives forever (said everyone who has ever had children), but while for most people having offsprings is a joyous and happily celebrated event, for the couple in the story the birth of their children brought only heartache and tragedy which is unfortunate because there was really nothing the parents could've done differently; except maybe not marry each other or opted not to have offsprings-- but like the father was thinking, he was in possession of a huge acreage of land, he would need a lot of kids in order to work the land; so in essence, his good fortune kind of brought about their demise. That's so sad... I guess money really can't buy you happiness.
March 7, 2015
A delightful short story, so very well constructed, such a very sad story of two innocents husband and wife and their four imbecilic children, the parents absolutely devastatingly distraught, with a very real tragic ending. A product of a very mature skillful author.
March 28, 2019
A haunting short story about life in rural late 19th century Brittany written by Joseph Conrad. He actually wrote the story on his honeymoon! The main characters are a couple whose children are mentally disabled. The theme of the strain put on parents of disabled children is especially relevant now as autism seems to be more common than ever.
January 21, 2024
I always want some consolation in a story, no matter how grim the material. This can be achieved by any number of means; thrill, humour, heroism, philosophy. What was my compensation here, I wonder?..
April 25, 2020
An interesting view as to how life, death and families operate. What do you do when life gives you lemons. This family didn't handle it very well.
June 5, 2020
Not the best story..... Very sad too.
August 18, 2020
En mycket tidig Conrad-novell. En tragedi. Levande, lättläst, tankeväckande - men ändå svår - att kalla människor, i synnerhet barn, för 'idioter', kan jag inte ta till mig. Å andra sidan ska man alltid misstänka att Joseph Conrads titlar är dubbeltydiga. De som kallar barnen 'idioter', är naturligtvis idioterna. Ja hela samhället, så som det var för hundra år sedan och längre ändå, var sjukt. Med andra ord en samhällskritisk text, genom att synliggöra.
May 22, 2022
Primeira obra publicada de Conrad. Ja com a brutal capacidade de narrar a devastação do género humano. Neste caso a desgraca que era ter filhos idiotas no sec XIX.
September 1, 2023
"Gli idioti" J. Conrad: 6
Triste storia di malattie genetiche e assenza di assistenza sociale, il tutto condito da sano maschilismo.
Triste storia di malattie genetiche e assenza di assistenza sociale, il tutto condito da sano maschilismo.
July 28, 2020
things just happen, they don't happen TO you. life will suck if you don't realize this and only act guided by your inner darkness.
p.s. religion is empty and cannot help you.
sincerely,
j. conrad.
p.s. religion is empty and cannot help you.
sincerely,
j. conrad.
April 19, 2016
On a whole, I found it ineffective for a short story. Wrong medium, too scattered.
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September 4, 2017French & English
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews