Lord Jim is set near the end of the 19th century aboard the Patna, a ship in Southeast Asia. It also takes place in various ports in the area and in a fictional remote village called Patusan. It’s possible that Conrad based the beginning portion of the novel—centered on Jim’s experience aboard the Patna—on the actual story of the SS Jeddah. Like the Patna, the SS Jeddah had around 800 Muslim passengers who were abandoned by the captain and crew when they thought the boat would sink. The news spread widely and, like Jim in the novel, one of the European crew members fled to a remote location (in Singapore) to start a new life.
Conrad’s decision to focus on the story of a white British man in Southeast Asia during the height of the British Empire is notable. While he does spend time developing some of the Malay characters with whom Jim builds relationships while living in Patusan, he primarily focuses on the dynamics between the white characters in the story—specifically Jim, Marlow, Stein, and Gentleman Brown. While some interpret this as a racist choice on Conrad’s part, there are moments in the novel that make it clear he is critiquing the actions and prejudices of the white characters. This comes across in passages like the following, when he describes the types of white sailors Jim gets to know at the beginning of the novel:
The majority were men who, like himself, thrown there by some accident, had remained as officers of country ships. They had now a horror of the home service, with its harder conditions, severer view of duty, and the hazard of stormy oceans. They were attuned to the eternal peace of Eastern sky and sea. They loved short passages, good deck-chairs, large native crews, and the distinction of being white. They shuddered at the thought of hard work, and led precariously easy lives.
Conrad does not hold back his feelings on white Europeans who chose to live in Southeast Asia in the late 19th century, critiquing the ways that they avoid the duty of serving as sailors “at home” (in England, mostly) in favor of “good deck-chairs, large native crews, and the distinction of being white.” Conrad’s description of how the men “shuddered at the thought of hard work” cements his point that these men are not heroes. (It’s likely that Conrad himself got to know these sorts of men when he himself was a sailor in Southeast Asia.) That Jim condemn these kinds of men suggests that Joseph Conrad is actively trying to counter racist colonial practices and beliefs in this novel.
