Ce récit a toutes les qualités évocatrices de l'art de Conrad qui cherche, surtout dans la description de la nature vierge et ténébreuse, non seulement à captiver l'intérêt intellectuel du lecteur, mais l'adhésion de son entière personnalité, en l'enveloppant dans un vaste filet de sensations.
"The three stories in this volume lay no claim to unity of artistic purpose. The only bond between them is that of the time in which they were written." Thus Conrad, in his Author's Note of 1917, qualifies his later statement that the stories represent the three ages of man--youth, maturity and age. Together on one volume we see that he did not set out to write about three separate periods of life, but rather that he wrote about life from three separate points of view.