LORD JIM introduces a sailor named Jim who boarded the Patna, a ship. One day, there was a giant hole in the Patna, and all the staff knew the ship would sink, and selfishly boarded the rescue boat by themselves. Jim got on the last moment. However, the Patna didn't sink, and all the staff and Jim lost their certificates to sea. Marlow made friends with Jim, which was how Jim was able to get to a place called Patusan. In Patusan, Jim made enemies with Rajah Allang and Cornelius, and friends with Stein, Doramin, Dain Waris, and his future wife, Jewel. Marlow visits Jim in Patusan for a while, but after that, they never met again. As Marlow talks about Jim's life in the present and at a big dinner, only a privileged person can know the ending of Jim's life. Marlow writes to that person a few years later. Brown, a criminal at sea, and his crew decided to stop at Patusan for a while and attack the village. That time, Jim was away, so 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. Marlow ends his letter by saying that Jim is a hopeless romantic.
The story shows Jim as a romantic with a big dream; however, he must face the reality before making his dream come true. Both Marlow and Stein describe Jim as a hopeless romantic. Jim had a big dream from when he was little and held that dream until he died: he wanted to be a hero on the sea who saved people. However, the reality was the complete opposite. When the Patna had a big hole in the side, all the crew thought it would sink without alarming the passengers. The selfish crew set up a rescue boat themselves, while Jim wanted to save the passengers first. However, Jim also jumped in at the last moment - as he thought. In that incident, Jim didn’t show any sign of heroism; moreover showed the world his cowardly behavior. He was the only one who decided to take responsibility and attend the court. After that, whenever the Patna incident came to his mind, all he knew was to run. In Patusan, the same thing happened again: Jim failed to protect his people because of cowardice and died with a bullet through his chest. Jim is trapped in two different worlds: one in which he is a brave hero who saves many people, and one in which he is a cowardly human running away from his troubles.
Throughout Jim’s life, a complexity of problems and consequences repeatedly aligning each other. Jim has a big problem in his life: the complexity of his personality and his reaction to reality. In the story, Jim’s biggest dream of his life is to be a brave hero who saves others all the time. However, the problem in his life is that he is not ready to be one and fails to be one at every chance he gets. Once, while sailing, Jim sees two ships about to crash together and wanted to save everyone. One might think that the reason he failed in completing his dream was because of his slow reaction, but it was just his cowardness holding him back the whole time. At the Patna, Jim could have saved all the passengers on board and let the passengers take the rescue boats first, but he was once again held back by his cowardness. In Patusan, Jim didn’t want to fight with Brown’s men and dismissed himself, making Dain Waris the leady of the fight instead. After Dain Waris got shot in the forehead, it was concluded that Jim failed in completing his responsibility to protect all of Patusan. In all these situations, Jim had to bear the consequences, and they weren’t pretty. Jim desperately wants to achieve his dream but is unable to do that and is held back by his cowardness every single time.
If Jim gets his life back and in the future, a similar situation happens again, he would still do the same; that is the way of human nature. Human nature is the way that humans react to different types of situations, and a big problem is that humans will make the same mistakes over and over again. In this case, Jim is the one who makes the same mistakes over and over again. According to his earlier experiences, it is found that Jim never made a heroic reaction to a problem. Although he has taken the consequences and seemed to learn his lesson, Jim never did the right thing he should’ve done, and he knows that. This type of situation is very common within the human world. We make mistakes, get the consequences, learn the lesson, make the same mistake again, get more consequences, learn the lesson, and yet still make the same mistake again, like a cycle. We, humans, seem to learn the lesson after bearing the consequences but still make the same mistake in a similar situation. The author uses Jim to show the reader the cycle of human nature. Jim first sees a boat accident before his eyes, learns the lesson to have a quicker reaction, doesn’t save the passengers on the sinking Patna, loses his certificates to sea, learns his lesson, becomes cowardly, and hides during the fight with Brown’s crew, and his shot on the chest. In the cycle of human nature, we make mistakes, bear the consequences, and learn our lesson, but we still make the same mistake again in the future.
In LORD JIM, a normal sailor named Jim is introduced. Jim has rather a peculiar and complex life. The novel shows him as a romantic with a big dream of becoming a hero on the sea. However, in reality, Jim was just a scared coward, running away like everyone else. He is in the gap between his romantic self and reality; he seems to be dreaming of his big dream and being in the reality simultaneously. Jim also has a big problem throughout his life: he wants to be a hero, but he is not ready to be one and must face the reality. Jim is also used as an example of ourselves in the cycle of human nature. He makes a mistake, bears the consequences, and learns his lesson, but yet again makes the same mistake.
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