Lord Jim, a novel by Joseph Conrad, is the story of a young sailor named Jim and the mistake that he makes in a moment of terror, a mistake that reminds and tortures him throughout the remainder of his life. Jim is a promising young man who quickly was promoted and quickly became the first mate. He had always dreamed of becoming a hero, but a decisive voyage changed everything. When he was serving on the ship 'Patna', he encountered a storm and he abandoned the ship and passengers with the other crew members. However, Patna did not sink, and Jim is undergoing a formal investigation and Jim was stripped of his sailor’s certificate. Marlow consulted his friend Stein, who offered to be his trade representative in Patusan. In Patusan, Jim made enemies with Rajah Allang and Cornelius, and became friends with Stein, Doramin, Dain Waris, and his future wife, Jewel. Marlow visits Jim in Patusan for a while, but after that, they never meet again. Brown, a criminal at sea, and his crew decided to stop at Patusan for a while and attack the village. Dain Waris led the fight. After a series of attacks and fights, Dain Waris gets shot in the forehead. Because Jim swore to protect all of Patusan, Doramin, Dain Waris' father, full of pain and anger, shot Jim right in the chest.
Many people have lofty and noble ideals that can never be really achieved in real life, and often just remain as a failure. Humans create dreams that are impossible to accomplish. The problem, however, is that Jim’s dreams are so big that his real life can’t possibly live up to them. People often can create unreal dreams that can be only accomplished in fantasy. Jim’s biggest encounter with disillusionment comes during the patna incident, when Jim finds himself on a large passenger ship that seems to be sinking. Jim wants to believe that he’s the type of person who would stay on a sinking ship and help rescue people, but when the time comes, he finds himself escaping with a few other cowardly sailors. The reality of Jim’s actions is so different from his fantasy of being a hero that he blacks out and can’t remember how he escaped. Though the passenger ship miraculously avoids sinking, Jim nevertheless remains haunted by his moment of cowardice when he abandoned innocent people to save his own life. Marlow believes that Jim isn’t so unusual and that many sailors wouldn’t live up to their ideals when put to the test. They’re just lucky enough to never face such a test. Nevertheless, Jim remains haunted by his failure to live up to his fantasies long after the rest of the world has forgotten about the Patna disaster. People all love romantic ideals and are confident they can achieve those ideals but the realists sometimes are filled with challenges and cruelties.
There are two dualities of morality, both in a legal sense and in the sense of human conscience. Following a set of rules may not always be moral, as everybody perceives being moral a different set of values. Sometimes, human conscience plays a big role in moral decision making. They can immediately determine which is right and wrong. Jim is on trial for failing his duty as a sailor, having abandoned the passengers traveling on the Patna in order to save his own life.Ultimately, the court strips Jim of his sailing certifications, but he’s otherwise free to go. Although Jim has dutifully fulfilled all of his legal obligations, he nevertheless remains haunted by feelings of guilt. The whole scene of Jim’s trial and his lingering feelings of guilt afterward suggest that the concept of justice is much more complicated than what happens in a courtroom. Doramon responds by shooting Jim in the chest, killing him instantly in what amounts to a very different type of justice. Both the bureaucracy of Jim’s court case and the blunt violence of Doramin’s judgment have a sort of justice to them, but Lord Jim shows that determining what’s just is never easy and is influenced by who does the judging. People's actions and attitudes tend to be more rational than emotional when feeling the guiltiness, but their thoughts would be more emotional than rational when making decisions.
People tell their own story about how things happened, especially when they are testifying in court. Many narrative descriptions presented does not necessarily mean it is impossible to find out the truth of what had happened. Marlow tries to tell the true story of Jim, but fails to do so because he has heard many sources, which not all are self-serving and truthful. Some contain biases, while others are far from the truth. Marlow sends a letter full of documents to the privileged reader. The fractured nature of the book itself reinforces the difficulty of finding the truth, with parts of the story told in traditional narration, parts told as a monologue, and parts told in letters. The end of the book takes this to the extreme, with Marlow sending a package containing several different documents—some of them written in different handwriting and one of which contains many stories within stories—to a nameless character who hasn’t appeared before and is referred to only as the privileged reader. Some people may have different biases on what they do, but still there are some people dedicated to telling the truth after considering many different sources and the potential biases.
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad talks about a guy called Jim who has always dreamed of being a hero. His ending was not what we expected because although he had found true love, he was separated from her on bad terms, and killed right after. This story may seem a bit aggressive, however the plot lines up really well. Jim was first neglected by himself, because of his denial that he would ever be a hero. Then, things were peaceful, he found a lover, and we definitely weren’t expecting him to be killed. This actually just makes the story more exciting and can help us reflect on many things. I believe that the story teaches us to stay true to ourselves, and although fate may not be on our side, we should still try our best to accomplish what we want to do in life. Jim started off as nothing, but died as a well known and successful person.
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