Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lord Jim, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fantasy vs. Reality
Justice and Duty
Racism and Colonialism
Truth and Perspective
Summary
Analysis
There’s a man who is a little under six feet tall, with a strong build, and a deep, loud voice. He wears all white and is a water clerk who sails around Asia. Water-clerk isn’t a position with a lot of technical qualifications, but it requires certain talent and street smarts. Good water-clerks are rare and so worth a lot to captains at sea. Although this man does good work, he often departs quickly after completing jobs. Most simply call him Jim. Jim, who is white, will eventually leave behind white men and live in a jungle village with Malays, who call him Tuan Jim—Lord Jim.
The opening paragraphs of Lord Jim establish the title character as someone who isn’t particularly remarkable—he is average height and doesn’t come from noble birth, but he also doesn’t have to face any adversity growing up. He doesn’t sound at all like a lord, and indeed, the title Lord Jim is supposed to be partly humorous with “lord” being a very fancy title but “Jim” being a very informal-sounding name.
Themes
Literary Devices
Jim grew up on a parsonage, where his father ministered to rich people, and he had four brothers. From an early age, he showed an aptitude for sailing. He liked to imagine himself in heroic situations, saving people from drowning or fighting with “savages” on distant shores.
From childhood, Jim already displays the trait that will define the course of his life: his romantic imagination. Though Jim’s childhood doesn’t receive much detail in the novel, it is an important time for Jim because his childish fantasies drive many of his adult decisions.
Themes
Literary Devices
Back in the present, it’s dusk on a rainy, windy day in winter. Ahead of the training ship that Jim is on, two other ships crash into each other. Jim wants to live out his fantasy of saving people in the other boats, but he is too slow to react. He knows he looks like a coward but feels that at least he learned something useful for the next time he has the chance to be a hero.
During a moment of truth, Jim fails to rise to the occasion and become a hero. This brief incident reveals two important truths about Jim: he often fails to act under pressure—but even his failures don’t stop him from picturing himself as a romantic hero.
Themes
