Chance is narrated by Conrad's regular narrator, Charles Marlow, but is characterized by a complex, nested narrative in which different narrators take up the story at different points. The novel is also unusual among its author's works for its focus on a female character: the heroine, Flora de Barral.

The narrators describe and attempt to interpret various episodes in the life of the Miss de Barral, the daughter of a convicted swindler, named Smith de Barral.