Lord Jim is a very moving and courageous book. It is filled with lessons of bravery in the face of danger, and its main character, Jim, has his life heroically narrated by Marlow. The story starts off with a glance at Jim’s term on the Patna. We learn that he has been wheedled and persuaded and taken by the crew to escape, and eventually, they all realized that the Patna had not gone down as they had thought it would. Jim summons all of his courage and gives a testimony against the crew, making it so they all gained hefty punishments. Marlow, meeting Jim after their trial, talks with Jim, learning his plight to gain redemption for his shameful acts. Marlow, feeling like he must help this man, hooks him up with a job. But unexplainably, Jim vanishes a while later working at his new job. And everytime when Marlow has found his friend once more, just a little later he disappears. It is revealed that Jim keeps on hearing and seeing reminders of the Patna, and is running away. Finally, he escapes to Patusan and makes a name for himself as Lord Jim. But in a fateful fight where his integrity and honesty is challenged, he fails. So, he doesn’t run away, and allows Doramin to carry out the punishment he had given for himself. Lord Jim reveals that despite our shame, we can always find a path to cleanse ourselves and heal.
After all Jim has learned and experienced, he would not run from the Patna’s sinking, and he would stand his ground instead of jumping. He would learn how to be brave and face an honest end. Knowing all the shame he felt, Jim would be able to realize that possibly dying would be better than his life of shame. In Lord Jim, Jim had already jumped once from the Patna, and felt all of the shame to come as a never-ending force that smothers whatever he tries to do. It is a pressure that he never wants to bear again, and is willing to do anything to get rid of it. But he has enough courage not to take the easy way out and avoid committing suicide to escape his self-hatred, and instead tries more and more for redemption. He stays alive and tries to find outlets of his shame by doing hard work, but he keeps on being reminded of the Patna and finally runs away to a distant island where only the natives live. The next time he is faced with a choice that could lead to immense shame, he chooses the right way. Jim has already had the experience of choosing possible death over shameful life, and I believe he would have completely decided that the shame is not worth living with, and it would be better to keep his honor. With Lord Jim’s experiences, the question of whether Jim would jump if the Patna was sinking is answered, with no.
Jim, if he was lied to, may be able to figure it out, but it depends mainly on the situation, but also upon Jim’s frame of mind. If he knows that he is talking with a criminal or a thief, but he is drunk and tired, he may still believe them. Jim has learned how to better discern from liars from his experience with Gentleman Brown, and might figure it out. In Lord Jim, Jim was quite vulnerable due to his troubled past, but he has learned how to understand others. When Brown questioned him, Brown quickly finds out this vulnerability, and is completely ready to exploit it. His romantic nature may feel that everyone is honest, but his realism will have told him that they may be lying. It’s ultimately up to Jim to decide whether they are being honest or not, but if his state of mind is distracted or vulnerable, he can be more likely to judge them as honest, but if the deceiver has a bad record, Jim may be able to figure it out. After all of Jim’s experiences on the Patna and on Patusan, he has gained a new ability to better realize when someone is telling the truth, but it will never be completely flawless.
If Jim managed to survive Doramin’s gun, he may succeed in a new scenario due to his newfound experience. He might, depending on the difficulty of his new scenario. If the choices were difficult and arduous to make, or if there was a power-hungry usurper out for blood, he has a high chance of failure. But due to his newfound bravery and courage, he could still succeed. In Lord Jim, Doramin’s gun was deadly, but what was just as deadly was Jim’s unrelenting gullibility. He trusted Brown, despite the obvious reasons not to. “Gentleman” Brown was a criminal, yet the friendly side that he showed to Jim caused Jim to trust him. He would easily succeed in a scenario if all he had to do was calculate taxes and give a speech every once in a while, but in a harder one he may fail. Jim’s honest and virtuous nature could cause him to trust more easily than he should, but due to his new experiences and his bravery, he could still succeed in a new scenario.
The three main questions Lord Jim leaves readers with are if Jim ever got another chance on the Patna, would he still run if the ship appeared to be sinking, or would he be brave and have learned something from his transition to romanticism to realism? The answer to this question is that no, he would stand his ground and be brave. Another question is if Jim is lied to or deceived, will he believe them and trust in his romantic nature, or will he be realistic and think he is being lied to? This question is difficult to answer, because it depends on the type of man and the state Jim is in, but ultimately he has a high chance to realize he is being deceived. The final question is of whether Jim, after knowing that he had been wrong and letting Doramin take his life, if he survived, would he fail again in a new, different scenario? Jim always has a high chance to succeed because of his bravery and courage. Lord Jim is a great book that helps teach readers the importance of bravery and virtue.
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