“Jukes could no longer see his captain distinctly. The darkness was absolutely piling itself upon the ship. At most he made out movements, a hint of elbows spread out, of a head thrown up. Captain MacWhirr was trying to do up the top button of his oilskin coat with unwonted haste. The hurricane, with its power to madden the seas, to sink ships, to uproot trees, to overturn strong walls and dash the very birds air to the ground, had found this taciturn man in its path, and doing its utmost, had managed to wring out a few words. Before the renewed wrath of winds swooped on his ship, Captain MacWhirr was moved to declare, in a tone of vexation, as it were: ‘I wouldn’t like to lose her.’ He was spared that annoyance.”
— Typhoon by Joseph Conrad
Technique
In Typhoon, Joseph Conrad writes an anticlimatic ending to show a technique of omitting information.
The above passage ends with, “He was spared that annoyance,” which summarizes the steamer and crew’s experience in a typhoon positively without providing how or what happened. The key to the anticlimax is the preceeding sentences, which inverts the sequence of events by showing us visually what a storm is capable of when it hits—including the loss of the ship—, setting up the destruction and expectation for the reader. Then Conrad erases that visual in the next sentence by saying the destruction never came to that. This doubles as an anticlimactic and surprise ending.
Use
- Anticlimactic endings can be tough to write because they risk flatlining the story and disappointing the reader. Add backstory and contextual clues to help the reader finish the novel on a high note, especially if information is omitted.
The Periplous 