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For the English jockey, see Charles Marlow (jockey).

Fictional character

Charles Marlow is a fictional English seaman and recurring character in the work of novelist Joseph Conrad.

Role of Marlow in novels by Conrad

Marlow narrates several of Conrad's best-known works such as the novels Lord Jim (1900) and Chance (1913), as well as the framed narrative in Heart of Darkness (1899), and his short story "Youth" (1898). In Lord Jim, Marlow narrates but has a role in the story, finding a place for Jim to live, twice. Raymond Malbone considers that Marlow is the main character in Lord Jim, as "the theme of the novel rests in what Jim's story means to Marlow rather than in what happens to Jim."^[1]

The stories are not told entirely from Marlow's perspective, however. There is also an omniscient narrator who introduces Marlow and some of the other characters. Once introduced, Marlow then proceeds to tell the main tale, creating a story-within-a