[4] A white man, addressed as "Tuan" (the equivalent of "Lord" or "Sir") arrives by canoe at the remote jungle dwelling of the Malayan Arsat.
Arsat begins to tell a story, starting with the time when he and his brother kidnapped Diamelen (who was previously a servant of the rajah's wife).
[8][9] The story is a tale of “impulsive betrayal and permanent remorse” in which an “act of redemption” will likely result in the protagonist’s death .
[10] Critic Laurence Graver remarks of Arsat’s tragic fate: By failing to understand the moral implications of his fatal choice, and by thinking that a simple act of revenge will provide final retribution, Arsat remains a permanent victim of his inadequate dreams.
[13]English caricaturist Max Beerbohm included Conrad among the seventeen authors he parodied in his 1912 A Christmas Garland.
[14] Beerbohm, in targeting “literary falseness” singled out two of Conrad’s Malay tales, “Karain” and “The Lagoon” for the “adjectival excesses” of their styles.
[15][16] “The Lagoon” in particular, according to literary critic Alfred J. Guerard “may well have deserved Max Beerbohm’s amusing parody…And yet it has the very originality and personal accent that provokes parody.