Lord Jim

Lord Jim is a novel by Joseph Conrad published in 1900. The novel falls into two parts, a psychological tale about Jim's moral lapse aboard the pilgrim ship Patna, and an adventure story about Jim's rise and fall amongst the people of Patusan, a native-ruled state somewhere in the interior of one of the islands of the East Indies. Some critics have said that the second part of the story is inferior to the first, but it is necessary to the working out of the psychological drama established in the first part.

Related Topics:
Joseph Conrad - 1900 - East Indies

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The novel is remarkable for its sophisticated manipulation of point of view. The bulk of the novel is told in the form of a story recited by the character Marlow at a dinner party, and the conclusion is presented in the form of a letter from Marlow. Within Marlow's narration, other characters often have their own stories to tell. Thus, events in the novel are described from many points of view, and in many cases, out of chronological order. Such a multi-faceted vision could not be achieved using the point of view of an omniscient narrator, or a first-person narration by Jim.

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As with a real person, we do not see Jim's interior, but only how he appears to others from the outside. Mere facts are inadequate to explain the human condition, as Marlow remarks of the trial: "They wanted facts. Facts! They demanded facts from him, as if facts could explain anything!" Ultimately, Jim remains mysterious, as seen through a mist: "that mist in which he loomed interesting if not very big, with floating outlines--a straggler yearning inconsolably for his humble place in the ranks." "It is when we try to grapple with another man's intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering, and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun." It is only through Marlow's recitation that Jim lives for us -- the warm relation between the two men that incites Marlow to "tell you the story, to try to hand over to you, as it were, its very existence, its reality--the truth disclosed in a moment of illusion."

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Marlow's character appears in others of Conrad's works, most notably Heart of Darkness.

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