Chance: A Tale in Two Parts

Summary

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men.”―Joseph Conrad, Chance

Flora de Barral, the daughter of a bankrupt businessman and swindler, must find her own way in the world when her father is convicted of financial speculation. Unfortunately, this is no easy thing for a single and vulnerable young woman in turn-of-the-century London.

Originally published serially starting in 1912, Chance is told chiefly by Conrad’s regular narrator, Charles Marlow, who is helped along by some other very observant characters. Together, these narrators unfold the story of Flora’s desperate attempts to navigate society and contend with the difficulties of forever relying on the compassion of others for her welfare, a compassion that rarely comes without certain strings attached.

Flora must find a way to maintain her dignity and find happiness in a world that, frankly, does not seem to want her to have either. A commercial success thanks to Conrad’s timely focus on “the New Woman” and his exploration of the new fad of financial speculation, Chance explores what a woman can and must do in such a world when she has “no resources but in herself. Her only means of action is to be what she is.”