53 pages • 1-hour read
Lord Jim
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Character Analysis
Lord Jim
Jim is introduced as a strong, well-built man of just under six feet with a manner of “dogged self-assertion” but without aggression (1). Blue-eyed and fair-haired, Jim is described throughout the novel as wearing clean, white clothing. This habit serves as a symbol to emphasize his position as a white among non-whites, and also symbolizes his attempt to redeem himself after the events of the Patna. Jim would rather no one know any name of his beyond “Jim,” and his surname is never shared with the reader. Jim’s preference for comparative anonymity is part of his character, at least following the shameful incident involving the Patna early in the novel. Jim thinks he has tarnished his family name. He is enthusiastic about taking up the role in Patusan partly as a chance to make a new name for himself. While there, he is bestowed the title of “Tuan Jim,” or Lord Jim, as a white representative of empire.
Jim is the fifth of five brothers, which perhaps explains his need to take to the sea to seek his fortune, as he will not inherit any of his family’s property. The very little else the reader knows of Jim’s family comes mainly from a description of a single letter from Jim’s father, whose kind voice opens up the possibility that Jim might have been welcomed back as a son, however prodigal, if he had not been too proud to return home. Jim is described as likeable, and he is energetic and hard-working, enabling him to land successive opportunities even as he runs from his past. He is also a romantic who dreams of doing something heroic and extraordinary with his life. Jim dreams of saving others from sinking ships (ironically), swash-buckling victories, daring deeds on deserted islands. Having lost his opportunity to perform heroic deeds at sea, he still seeks an opportunity to somehow turn his “imaginary achievements” into reality (15). Patusan provides it. Perhaps due to this romantic nature, the only personal item (beyond the letter from his father and those items given Jim during the novel) that the narrator describes among Jim’s possessions is the copy of a volume of Shakespeare that Jim carries.
Jim’s ready acceptance of the mantle of leadership in Patusan—even while the king’s son, Dain Waris, stands aside—suggests a racialized hubris born of empire. Certainly, Jim accepts that it is his destiny to decide disputes among the Indigenous people with but a word from him. If Jim finally earns the title of Lord Jim, it is only when he keeps his word in dutifully accepting his own death—taking responsibility for the non-European lives he has claimed power over, precisely as he failed to do on the Patna.
Marlow
Marlow is an experienced British ship captain who narrates much of the story of Lord Jim. Marlow is himself a mouthpiece for empire who comes from a position of white privilege, and Conrad makes his position clear from Marlow’s first mentioning of the Patna incident. Dressing in his stateroom aboard ship, Marlow says he would hear “my Parsee Dubash jabbering about the Patna with the steward, while he drank a cup of tea, by favour, in the pantry” (28). The dismissive “jabbering” indicates a condescending attitude toward Dubash. The “favour” of the tea stands in for a host of more abstract favors—of nobility and civilization—that Marlow believes he has the power to dispense, as a representative of the British Empire, to the people of color he encounters. Marlow meanwhile has the leisure to tell Jim’s story to a group of fellow diners to pass the time after dinner, and it is in this environment that the unnamed, omniscient third-person narrator and Marlow take over the telling of the story. Marlow’s narrative is itself largely a way to justify his own role in aiding Jim, a disgraced seaman who abandoned his duty to the passengers aboard the Patna. Jim’s being “one of us”—an oft-repeated phrase, presumably indicating both his whiteness and his relatively elevated class origin—provides sufficient justification, in Marlow’s view, for placing Jim in this role.
Marlow is at great pains to tell Jim’s story, even piecing together events he neither witnessed directly nor heard about directly from Jim. This follows a familiar pattern wherein voices of authority always come from the imperial centers rather than the Indigenous outposts. Marlow also appears as a narrator in Conrad’s most famous work, Heart of Darkness, published a year before Lord Jim. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad uses Marlow to narrate the tale of another imperial trader of grandiose aspirations, Kurtz, whose own romantic notions also inform his dreams of adventure and power. Like Jim, Kurtz also assumes a position of unearned authority among the Indigenous peoples. Also like Jim, Kurtz’s imperial ambitions and outsider status prove to be his downfall.
Dain Waris
Dain Waris serves a dramatic foil for Jim, even while Jim can be seen as usurping Waris’s rightful position. Waris has the advantage over Jim in being supported by his parents, who dream of their son being ruler. Doramin confides in Marlow about these dreams for his son and asks for a promise that, when Jim goes away, Dain Waris will be ruler in his stead. In this way, positioning Dain Waris as ruler could be seen as a repudiation of the incursion of empire, since Patusan under his rule would be controlled not only by an Indigenous person but also one who boasts wisdom and the affection of his people.
Even Marlow, from his Eurocentric perspective, sees that Dain Waris has all the characteristics necessary to be a successful leader. Waris captivates Marlow, who describes him as having an “unobscured vision, a tenacity of purpose, a touch of altruism,” characteristics Marlow associates with the best Europeans (218). Dain Waris’s insight may be said to be greater than Marlow’s, since Marlow believes Waris has a true understanding of Jim, something that Marlow himself can never completely claim. Ironically, since Marlow and not Waris occupies the position of narrator, this true understanding of the protagonist is denied to the reader.
Ironically, the fact that Waris accepts and even supports Jim’s position as decision-maker is finally his undoing. With Jim away, Waris makes all the right decisions in trying to stop Brown, and had he not decided to wait for Jim to return, Waris and his men would doubtlessly have completed the task of removing Brown as a threat. But Waris, like the rest, waits on the white man, Jim, to return and make a final decision about what to do. Jim makes the wrong decision, and Waris accepts it, only to be killed as a result. Like many others, Dain Waris is perhaps caught in the belief that Jim, the white man, is invulnerable. He trusts and follows the imperial interloper and so forfeits his own life along with his chance to rule.
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