Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the texts
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction, or confession of a mastodon
- 2 Conrad's Polish background, or from biography to a study of culture
- 3 Joseph Conrad's parents
- 4 Joseph Conrad and Tadeusz Bobrowski
- 5 The Sisters: a grandiose failure
- 6 Lord Jim: a Romantic tragedy of honour
- 7 The Mirror of the Sea
- 8 A Personal Record
- 9 Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, or the melodrama of reality
- 10 Conrad, Russia and Dostoevsky
- 11 Conrad and Rousseau: concepts of man and society
- 12 Conrad and the idea of honour
- 13 Joseph Conrad: a European writer
- 14 Joseph Conrad after a century
- 15 Joseph Conrad in his historical perspective
- 16 Fidelity and art: Joseph Conrad's cultural heritage and literary programme
- Notes
- Index
6 - Lord Jim: a Romantic tragedy of honour
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the texts
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction, or confession of a mastodon
- 2 Conrad's Polish background, or from biography to a study of culture
- 3 Joseph Conrad's parents
- 4 Joseph Conrad and Tadeusz Bobrowski
- 5 The Sisters: a grandiose failure
- 6 Lord Jim: a Romantic tragedy of honour
- 7 The Mirror of the Sea
- 8 A Personal Record
- 9 Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, or the melodrama of reality
- 10 Conrad, Russia and Dostoevsky
- 11 Conrad and Rousseau: concepts of man and society
- 12 Conrad and the idea of honour
- 13 Joseph Conrad: a European writer
- 14 Joseph Conrad after a century
- 15 Joseph Conrad in his historical perspective
- 16 Fidelity and art: Joseph Conrad's cultural heritage and literary programme
- Notes
- Index
Summary
‘He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet…’ Considering that Jim's height has no bearing on his story, perhaps no other great novel begins so nonchalantly. This manoeuvre is characteristic. At the very opening of the novel we encounter an example of the play of shadows which the author will carry on to the end. Right at the outset we are given a meticulous description of Jim's physical appearance, but his psychology will remain undeciphered until the end – undeciphered, that is, for the main narrator, Marlow, though not necessarily for the reader, whose knowledge throughout is broader than Marlow's. The reader knows, for instance, something about Jim's past. She or he knows of Jim's unrealized jump off the deck of the training-ship, in time to help save the shipwrecked sailors. She or he has learned, too, of Jim's day-dreaming about the courage and efficiency which he assumed himself to be ready to display in case of need; and knows that it was just this day-dreaming which prevented him from showing real courage and readiness for action when the opportunity to do so actually arose. This knowledge helps the reader to see more distinctly the psychological circumstances of Jim's fatal jump from the deck of the apparently sinking Patna. In addition, the reader will have formed her or his own opinion of Marlow and be therefore in a better position to interpret, even through the veil of Marlow's uncertainties, Jim's behaviour and motivation.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Conrad in PerspectiveEssays on Art and Fidelity, pp. 81 - 94Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997