ABSTRACT
Conrad’s attention to his auditor’s pedigree and national character, which, by virtue of his expatrial condition, was always different from his own, became a matter of a sometimes extreme anxiety when, owing to the absence of physical contact with the real reader, was required to relinquish all extratextual means of bridging or compressing the cultural distance. The structural complexity of Lord Jim stems from Conrad’s desire to draw attention to the relationship between narration, interpretation, and reading in trans-cultural context. Conrad’s sensitivity to the practical role of the reader in the process of creating the meaning of the text, as well as to the place of the author in the narrative, is essentially a function of his expatriate condition.
