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
After dinner at a party, Marlow tells a group of people that he remembers going to an inquiry about the Patna. He begins telling a very long story of Jim’s life. Marlow says there’s something about him that makes over men want to loosen up and tell him their stories. Marlow says he’s often asked to re-tell these stories after dinner at parties and that the story of Jim is an easy enough one to tell after a big meal.
Chapter 5 through the beginning of Chapter 36 is almost entirely one long monologue by Marlow, and so there are whole entire chapters that take place inside quotation marks. Within Marlow’s monologue, there are often stories within stories, and this creates a complex tapestry that illustrates how the truth can look different from multiple perspectives.
Themes
Marlow says Jim’s case was notorious, since everyone in the local area connected to the sea was there. Marlow doesn’t explain what the case was about at first—he just gives details about what it was like being there to witness it after having heard sailors talking about the Patna. When Marlow gets his first view of Jim in court, he’s surprised at how comfortable Jim appears discussing the Patna—he can’t tell whether Jim is oblivious or callous. Marlow knows little about sailing but says Jim looks like someone who should be left in charge on deck.
Marlow (and by extension Conrad) withholds vital information from the reader—it isn’t clear at this point why Jim is in so much trouble. Partly, this is because the specifics of the Patna incident aren’t the most important part of the story right now. What is important is that society has judged Jim guilty of doing something wrong, and Jim has decided to face the consequences and try to defend himself.
Themes
Marlow remains obsessed with the Patna. He speaks with one of the two engineers from the ship who had to be hospitalized. He believes that the ship sank and that when it did, it was full of reptiles, specifically millions of pink toads as big as dogs. Marlow, however, says this is a lie, and the ship didn’t sink. Marlow finally manages to calm the delirious man, and then he leaves.
The novel continues to tease the mystery of what happened on board the Patna. While it might have seemed earlier like Jim abandoned a sinking ship, this passage reveals that in fact, Jim seems to have abandoned a ship that didn’t sink. Nevertheless, the engineer’s delirious state suggests that something traumatic still happened.
Themes
