The World Pain

““‘“Man is amazing, but he is not a masterpiece [. . .] Perhaps
the artist was a little mad. Eh?”'" (125).
Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim (1900)

Points for Reflection

Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim (1900), chps. 36-45

1. how would it alter the novel to end it with chapter 35 instead of continuing through to chapter 45?
2. the “‘privileged man’” who receives that Marlow’s correspondence about Jim’s final days apparently told Marlow--two years earlier--that “‘“giving your life”’” to those of a foreign culture is “‘“like selling your soul to a brute”’”  unless one’s actions are grounded in a firm belief in “‘the morality of an ethical progress’” (201).  This individual apparently told Marlow that one cannot sacrifice one’s life in a worthy way unless one holds such a belief.  Does Jim? If so, in what does he believe?
3. does Marlow believe that Jim’s family’s Christian faith gave them the imaginative capacity to envision the struggles faced by sailors (202-203)?
4. is Marlow correct that Jewel does “‘not grasp the real sense of what she was telling [him]’” (207)?
5. does Jim sink into the same swamp enveloping the other would-be leaders in this novel, or emerge as something special?
6. putting aside Cornelius’ jealousy of Jim for a moment, consider why else the older man might call Jim a “fool” (218, 224).
7. does learning about “Gentleman” Brown’s past dalliance with the wife of a missionary (209, 228) make him more sympathetic, or less so?
8. since the self-absorbed and duplicitous Brown is the one describing his private exchange with Jim, we don’t have access to Jim’s true feelings about the conversation—and only limited understanding of how Jim responds to Brown’s words.  Does Brown unwittingly say anything certain to a reaction deep within Jim?
9. how much does Marlow trust Brown’s account of his time in Patusan?
10. Jim told Marlow he had not yet lost sight of why he came to Patusan—not yet forgotten the shameful event that pursues him (181).  Has he successfully escaped this memory by the end of the novel?
11. whose narrative perspective takes over most of the narrative left after Marlow report Brown’s extended interaction with Jim? How frequently does Brown’s perspective reappear?
12. how effective a leader does Jewel prove when left in charge of the fort?
13. Marlow proves unwilling to divulge what he learned from Jewel about that hour or more she had alone with Him following Dain Waris’ death (242).  What arguments do you imagine she used in her efforts to alter Jim’s planned course of action?
14. when Jim tells Jewel, “‘“Nothing can touch me,”’” what does he mean, and do you think Marlow correct to interpret this as a “‘last flicker of superb egoism’” (244)?
15. which of the two options given us by Marlow do you, personally, gravitate towards--the portrait of Jim as an "inscrutable" and "excessively romantic" man who achieves "extraordinary success," or the vision of one driven by an "exalted egoism" who marries himself to "a shadowy ideal of conduct" (246)?

Stars (1938)
Wassily Kandinsky

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu