SOURCE: Watson, Wallace S. “Misogyny and Homerotic Hints Feminized and Romanticized: Conrad's ‘Amy Foster’ and Kidron's Swept from the Sea.” In Literature/Film Quarterly, 29, no. 3 (2001): 179-95.

In the following essay, Watson contrasts Conrad's story “Amy Foster” with the 1997 film adaptation Swept from the Sea.

Beeban Kidron's 1997 film, Swept from the Sea (released as Amy Foster in England) is the third adaptation since 1974 of Joseph Conrad's short story, “Amy Foster,” a bleak tale of alienation, marital misunderstanding, and death set in rural Kent in the late nineteenth century.¹ Written in less than two weeks in June 1901, this is one of Conrad's most pessimistic and misogynistic short stories.² Its tragic themes have attracted some generalized appreciative commentary, but little notice has been taken of its stylistic shortcomings, particularly rhetorical overreaching. Many critics have speculated about the autobiographical implications of the story, particularly the suggestions of strong authorial identification with the...