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
Despite the danger to his life, Jim remains at Cornelius’s house, and he begins telling the Bugis of how they can raid Sherif Ali’s camp. Jim successfully convinces the Bugis. He’s excited that when he goes back to Cornelius, he tries to be more polite, and Cornelius does the same.
Jim’s actions are right at the border between bravery and recklessness, perhaps suggesting how thin the borders can be between these two qualities.
Themes
Jim wakes in the middle of the night at Cornelius’s. Jewel is telling him to get up. Jim grabs his revolver and gets up, although Jewel warns him there are four men outside. She leads Jim away and tells him that he was to be attacked in the middle of the night. She reveals that she’s been watching him sleep in case of attacks like this. Jim is annoyed, however, by all these alarms about unseen enemies.
Jim likes challenges that he can face head-on (or at least he thinks he does). The unseen potential assassins in the dark are like the Patna on the dark night when Jim was fleeing it—in both situations, the horrors that Jim invents in his mind are even harder to face than reality.
Themes
Jim calls out to Cornelius, but Jewel warns him to run away, since now they know he’s awake. Jim wants to stay and fight, but Jewel pleads for him to go to Doramin. Jim eventually leaves; Jewel follows him. Jim remains frustrated that he can’t see his enemies. As they walk, Jewel suddenly tells Jim to fire his weapon, but Jim says there’s nothing there.
Jim can’t see the danger for himself, but he trusts Jewel to lead him. Given Jim’s prior resistance to intimacy and to relying on others, this passage represents a step forward for him, though a part of him still resists being led.
Themes
Just then, a man hidden and lying down leaps up at Jim. Jim feels relief and knows at once that this attacking man will soon be a dead man. He fires his revolver and shoots the man through the mouth. He steps over the dead man, and one of the other men quickly throws aside his spear to surrender, telling Jim that there are two more men.
Although it might seem terrifying to have to shoot an assassin, Jim prefers to deal with threats that he can see as opposed to phantoms in his mind, perhaps because he has such an active imagination. Succeeding at this challenge gives Jim the confidence to continue.
Themes
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