Joseph Conrad's novel The Shadow Line narrates a fundamental event in life, whereby a young sailor who has just left his position as second mate on the pretext of returning to his homeland is appointed, in a singular twist of fortune, captain of a ship that is stranded in Bangkok waiting to be taken to Sydney. Particular circumstances of that voyage will make the young captain have to resign the initial destination and manage to bring the ship and crew safely to the port of Singapore. The purpose of our reflection is to show that this work gives access to a human experience that has the form of an existential event, that is to say, that has the character of the singular and determining for a human life, and that is not reduced to what we could consider merely episodic, since it has the power to alter its course, leading it towards its own form of realization, through an alteration, change or transformation that I will call "crossing of existential thresholds". I’m interested in showing in what way these thresholds are constituted, or in what way they can be recognized in orders such as time, space and language.
