When introducing the Patna—the ship on which Jim will experience his first taste of adventure as a sailor—the narrator uses a pair of similes, as seen in the following passage:
The Patna was a local steamer as old as the hills, lean like a greyhound, and eaten up with rust worse than a condemned water-tank.
The first simile here—in which the ship is described as “old as the hills”—helps prepare readers for the fact that Jim’s youthful optimism and adventurous hopes are not going to be met aboard the Patna. Jim will soon learn that not only is the ship old, but the crew members are tired and jaded, choosing to abandon the Patna when they believe it is sinking rather than trying to save the passengers and honorably going down with the ship.
The second simile—in which Conrad writes that the ship is “lean like a greyhound”—suggests that, while there is still some energy and power in the ship, it is not exactly a strong and robust vessel. This proves to be true when the ship hits something underwater and almost sinks. It is also notable that Conrad describes how the Patna is “eaten up with rust worse than a condemned water-tank.” This is another way that he is pointing to the fragility of the ship and likely to the ethical weakness and impurity of colonialism itself (as the Patna is, in part, a symbol of European colonization and conquest).
Near the beginning of the novel, when Jim is just starting his time on the Patna, he looks around at his crew mates, judging them based on their appearance. In the following passage, the narrator uses both a simile and hyperbole to capture Jim’s feelings of disgust when looking at the skipper:
[T]he fold of his double chin hung like a bag triced up close under the hinge of his jaw. Jim started, and his answer was full of deference; but the odious and fleshy figure, as though seen for the first time in a revealing moment, fixed itself in his memory for ever as the incarnation of everything vile and base that lurks in the world we love.
The simile here—in which the narrator describes how “the fold of [the skipper’s] double chin hung like a bag triced up close under the hinge of his jaw”—communicates the large size of the man’s double chin. Taken together with the hyperbole in the next line—in which the narrator communicates Jim’s belief that the skipper is “the incarnation of everything vile and base that lurks in the world we love”—this simile is clearly a demeaning one.
The intensity of Jim’s reaction to the large man’s appearance suggests that Jim is struggling to reconcile his romantic visions of what a life on the sea would be like versus what it is. The Patna is not full of young, vivacious sailors like himself searching for adventure, but “odious” and “vile” men like the skipper. (The association of fatness with “everything vile and base that lurks in the world” is, of course, a prejudiced notion.)
When Jim is on trial for abandoning the Patna (something crew members of a ship are not supposed to do, even if they believe the ship to be sinking), he uses a simile to describe the incident that led to the ship’s near sinking, as seen in the following passage:
A month or so afterwards, when Jim, in answer to pointed questions, tried to tell honestly the truth of this experience, he said, speaking of the ship: “We went over whatever it was as easy as a snake crawling over a stick.”
In comparing the experience of the Patna hitting something deep in the ocean to “a snake crawling over a stick,” Jim communicates to the courtroom that there is no way he and the rest of the crew could have known at first that the ship had been severely damaged. Snakes move smoothly over sticks, and the ship moved smoothly over whatever the obstruction was. This is Jim's way of explaining why the crew didn’t take action sooner to save the passengers aboard the ship.
It is also notable that, while Jim is on trial for a serious crime, he is using playful figurative language like this. This is Conrad’s way of signaling to readers Jim’s romantic nature—he is spinning a tale about an adventure he had rather than answering the court's questions in a simple and direct manner.
When describing Jim’s experience aboard the Patna after the ship hit a mysterious object underwater and seemingly began to sink, Marlow uses a simile and a hyperbole, as seen in the following passage:
“Then, the squall being very near now, another and a heavier swell lifted the passive hull in a threatening heave that checked his breath, while his brain and his heart together were pierced as with daggers by panic-stricken screams. ‘Let go! For God’s sake, let go! Let go! She’s going.’ Following upon that the boat-falls ripped through the blocks, and a lot of men began to talk in startled tones under the awnings. ‘When these beggars did break out, their yelps were enough to wake the dead,’ he said.”
The simile here—“his brain and his heart together were pierced as with daggers by panic-stricken screams”—captures the intensity of Jim’s fear and anxiety in this moment, as well as the panic of all of the passengers aboard the Patna. Daggers piercing a brain and heart simultaneously is an evocative description. The passengers’ panic becomes even more palpable via Jim’s hyperbolic statement that their screams “were enough to wake the dead.” This exaggeration helps readers understand the volume and force of the “yelps” of people certain that they are about to die.
The enormity of the passengers’ panic communicates to readers that this wasn’t an ordinary occurrence. The crew and passengers earnestly believed that they would all soon drown. In this way, the figurative language here helps readers understand why Jim failed to perform his duty as a member of the crew, fully abandoning the ship and all of its passengers in the process. It is not something he intentionally chose to do, but a decision he automatically made from a place of fear.
When Marlow visits Patusan for the first time after dropping Jim off in the foreign land, he notices the changes that have happened since he left. He reflects on Jim’s new relationship to the people of Patusan, using a simile in the process:
“Jim the leader was a captive in every sense. The land, the people, the friendship, the love, were like the jealous guardians of his body. Every day added a link to the fetters of that strange freedom.”
The simile here—in which Marlow compares the land and people of Patusan to “jealous guardians” holding Jim “captive”—communicates a key difference between Marlow and Jim. While Jim experiences a sense of safety and belonging on the island, especially as he gets to know the people and land better, Marlow views him as being trapped and guarded. This is because Marlow approaches Southeast Asia with a European colonizer’s mindset—he comes and goes as he pleases, holding relationships primarily with the other Europeans (such as Stein)—while Jim approaches the same place with reverence and a commitment to building real relationships with the local community. What Marlow views as “strange freedom” made up of chains, Jim experiences as actual and complete freedom.
Near the end of the novel, Marlow describes a conversation he had with Jewel about whether Jim is planning to leave Patusan or not, using a simile and a metaphor in the process:
“Why did I come, then? After a slight movement [Jewel] was as still as a marble statue in the night. I tried to explain briefly: friendship, business; if I had any wish in the matter it was rather to see him stay. . . . ‘They always leave us,’ she murmured. The breath of sad wisdom from the grave which her piety wreathed with flowers seemed to pass in a faint sigh. . . . Nothing, I said, could separate Jim from her.”
The simile here—in which Marlow describes how Jewel “was as still as a marble statue” while waiting to hear why Marlow came back to Patusan—captures the intensity of Jewel's anxiety about Marlow possibly coming to take Jim back with him. She is so scared that her husband might be leaving her that she cannot move or breathe.
The metaphor in this passage is a bit more complex. When Marlow describes “the grave which [Jewel’s] piety wreathed with flowers” he is capturing something important about the effects of colonialism. Because Jewel is so used to white colonizers coming to Patusan, taking what they want, and then leaving, she is preparing herself to lose Jim (if he were to go back to Europe), and, Marlow imagines, has already built a grave for him inside of her mind and heart.
The ultimate irony, of course, is that Jim ends up in a literal grave (after choosing to stay in Patusan) rather than in a metaphorical one (if he had left Jewel and gone home to Europe). This situational irony becomes clear at the end of the novel when Jim is killed by Doramin after failing to protect the Malay community from Brown’s attack.
In the final paragraphs of the novel, Marlow comments on Jim’s death at the hands of Doramin, using a simile in the process:
“He passes away under a cloud, inscrutable at heart, forgotten, unforgiven, and excessively romantic. Not in the wildest days of his boyish visions could he have seen the alluring shape of such an extraordinary success! For it may very well be that in the short moment of his last proud and unflinching glance, he had beheld the face of that opportunity which, like an Eastern bride, had come veiled to his side.”
The simile here—in which Marlow compares the “opportunity” Jim was given to die heroically as being “like an Eastern bride” approaching his side—is somewhat complex. In order to understand this simile, one must understand the historical colonial entitlement that led many white European settlers to view Asian women as property. Additionally, one of the racist stereotypes prevalent at the time was that Asian women were more subservient than their European counterparts.
With this context in mind, it’s easier to comprehend what Marlow is saying in this passage. He is suggesting here that Jim’s death was not full of struggle or pain, but that, like a groom looking at a docile bride, Jim saw this moment as a gift, as he was given the opportunity to die in a heroic and adventurous way (like he had always sought to do).
When describing the confrontation between Jim and Doramin after Jim’s poor decision-making led to the death of Doramin’s son (Dain Waris), Marlow uses a simile, as seen in the following passage:
“The unwieldy old man, lowering his big forehead like an ox under a yoke, made an effort to rise, clutching at the flintlock pistols on his knees. From his throat came gurgling, choking, inhuman sounds.”
The simile here—in which Marlow describes Doramin “lowering his big forehead like an ox under a yoke”—captures the immensity of Doramin’s grief. He is not lowering his head as a sort of bow or sign of respect when Jim enters the room, but because he has lost his son, the most important person in his life, and can barely keep his composure. The description of the “gurgling, choking, inhuman sounds” that Doramin makes further communicates how delirious and out-of-sorts he is in this moment.
The reference to a yoke in the simile communicates how weighed-down Doramin feels by his grief, and it also hints at the ways that colonialism dehumanizes and oppresses colonial subjects. Though Jim did his best not to perpetuate certain colonial practices and norms, he is still a white man who got caught up in a struggle with other white men (Cornelius and Brown) that led to the death of innocent Southeast Asian people. In this way, Jim and other Europeans have "yoked" people like Doramin, controlling them and treating them as less-than-human.
