Lord Jim

Lord Jim, one of Joseph Conrad’s best-known novels, tells the tragic tale of a young English seaman whose life is forever altered after a test of character reveals personal flaws that ultimately prove fatal. First published in 1899, the story is set during the colonial era and draws its inspiration from an age of exploration when men sailed in tall ships, some seeking fortune or adventure, others driven by necessity to an itinerant existence on the high seas. Against a gritty and often unglamorous backdrop, we learn of the title character’s emotional journey as much as his travels, and it is through this examination of the human element that the story really shines.

Jim, a parson’s son, is a hardy and capable young man inspired by stories of adventure to take up the trade of seaman with all the naïve idealism of inexperience. He soon discovers that it is routine rather than adventure that characterises life at sea, but proves himself capable enough and soon becomes the chief mate of the Patna, a steamship headed for the Red Sea. With a vessel ‘eaten up with rust worse than a condemned water-tank’ and a motley crew captained by a German from New South Wales, they embark on their journey with around eight-hundred passengers. Disaster strikes, however, when the ship collides with an unknown object and begins to take on water. With the passengers asleep below, the captain and some crew judge its sinking as inevitable and imminent. It is at this moment, as the captain and others scramble to escape aboard a lifeboat, that Jim’s dreams of courage and heroism give way to an ugly reality. He freezes, and in a dazed panic, jumps aboard the lifeboat as the passengers lie unaware of the danger; this act proves to be fateful.

The conflict between Jim’s naïve self-belief and his actions aboard the Patna are the key to understanding the remainder of the story. This irreconcilable difference becomes a wedge that drives Jim away from a more conventional life and towards an involuntary surrender to shame. Aboard the Patna prior to the incident, Jim reflects that ‘the quality of these men did not matter; he rubbed shoulders with them, but they could not touch him; he shared the air they breathed, but he was different…’. He is a dreamer; indulgent and fanciful. After the fact, we learn that the Patna did not sink, and was rescued by a French vessel and brought to port. The crew are put on trial for their actions and Jim endures public humiliation stoically; the first of repeated attempts to salvage his honour from the wreckage of the Patna affair, which seems to follow him wherever he goes. At the trial he meets Marlow, the narrator for the remainder of the story and also the main character in Heart of Darkness, another of Conrad’s novels. Marlow, a fellow seaman, sympathises with Jim and attempts to help the young man steady himself and avoid an undeserved fate. But it is a fate to which Jim seems to have already condemned himself.

It is the question of fate that provides depth to the story and helps it rise above an ordinary adventure tale. Marlow, an older and wiser man who sees something of himself in Jim, tries to steer him toward new opportunities and a new life, and Jim proves himself a capable, worthy, and honest man with potential. But he is unable to avoid provocation from those who recall the Patna episode, and he sabotages himself repeatedly, moving from one job to the next and letting down those who put their trust in him, including Marlow and his employers. A pattern is formed, and it seems that Jim will waste his potential. We see a man who is simple, decent, and possessed of forgivable human weakness. We are frustrated by the way he cannot dislodge his sense of shame that jars with his idea of what, or who he should be; who he imagined himself to be. How can Jim find forgiveness if not within himself? Conrad seems to understand the type of trauma that can drive one to undermine their own happiness, to imprison themselves in a kind of hopelessness, and create a deep belief that things cannot be changed or improved; Jim is resigned to a fate where he must continue to be punished for his cowardice. But there is to be one last chance at redemption.

This chance comes in the form of Stein, a wealthy merchant, whom Marlow enlists to help Jim. Stein agrees to employ Jim in his operation in Patusan, a remote location in the South Seas. Jim sees his chance at a new start in a place where ‘thirty miles of forest shut it off from the sight of an indifferent world’; a place where his past cannot find him. After helping to defeat a local bandit, he wins the trust of the locals and meets a young woman with whom he falls in love. He even becomes known by the locals as ‘Tuan’ — or Lord — Jim. It seems that, perhaps, he can finally find peace as an outcast; as a foreigner in a place where no one can really know him or his terrible secret. But trouble comes in the form of another white man named Brown, one with very different intentions; a desperate outlaw. It is Brown and his gang that shatter Jim’s fantasy and force him to finally face his demons. In this second test of character, Jim is determined to correct his first mistake, but in attempting to do so repeats it.

Lord Jim is rightly considered one of Conrad’s best works. It is superior in depth and scope to Heart of Darkness, with which it shares a similar setting and characters, though it suffers from long exposition and the sometimes-confusing narrative spoken by Marlow which regularly shifts back and forth between past and present. It is also perhaps longer than it should be. Despite these flaws, the book captures the tragedy of a healthy, strong, and capable young man unable to recover from an emotional wound; one that prevents him from finding his way in the world. Some events can shape our short time on this earth, and his story is a reminder of the unforgiving nature of human existence.