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
Jim stands still for a long time by a hatch on the Patna, expecting it to sink at any moment. At last, he gets the idea to cut some of the lanyards so that the boats will float if the ship goes down. He runs around to do this, but as he does, a beggar pilgrim stops him to say “Water, water!” in his native language. Jim is shocked, thinking at first that the man knows something, but the man is just asking for a drink of water for his sick child. Jim eventually loses sight of the man and sets about working on the boats. The skipper is by the boats and commands Jim to help. Jim looks up and sees a calm sea but rationalizes that nothing can be done to fix a bulkhead quick enough to stop the boat from sinking.
In the moment, Jim doesn’t actually have to be a hero—he just has to consider what he might do if he were a hero, before ultimately acting in his own self-interest. But unlike the evil characters in the story, Jim is aware of his hypocrisy, particularly after the fact, and his inability to become the type of hero he fantasizes about being in moments of crisis continues to pain him.
Themes
Back at their dinner at the hotel, Jim tells Marlow that anyone in his position would have felt similarly paralyzed. Over dinner, Marlow tells Jim that unexpected things happen all the time, an idea Jim rejects. Marlow muses that Jim has such an active imagination that he could easily have pictured the Patna wrecking in his mind’s eye. Marlow admits that in that situation, he himself would not have bet the Patna would have stayed afloat. But Jim tells Marlow that the pilgrims remained unaware of what was going on. And yet somehow, despite their ignorance, they were carried safely in the Patna to the port of Aden. A couple pilgrims eventually came over from Aden to provide evidence at Jim’s inquiry.
Jim’s internal conflict is a conflict between mind and body. Intellectually, Jim knows that he should try to be a hero and help all the innocent pilgrims aboard the Patna. On a more visceral level, however, Jim can’t help putting his own survival above all else. The disconnect between Jim’s thoughts and actions is so great that Jim’s only way of resolving this discrepancy is to dissociate and act as if his body is paralyzed on its own.
Themes
