The writing style of Lord Jim features many similes, evocative imagery, and rich figurative language. Conrad’s ornamental writing style comes across in passages like the following, when Marlow describes the ocean view aboard the ship as he prepares to leave Jim in Patusan:
“Below us the plain of the sea, of a serene and intense blue, stretched with a slight upward tilt to the thread-like horizon drawn at the height of our eyes. Great waves of glitter blew lightly along the pitted dark surface, as swift as feathers chased by the breeze. A chain of islands sat broken and massive facing the wide estuary, displayed in a sheet of pale glassy water reflecting faithfully the contour of the shore.”
Vivid language like “the thread-like horizon,” “great waves of glitter,” and “a sheet of pale glassy water reflecting faithfully the contour of the shore” all engage readers’ senses and help them to be fully in the scene with the two men. The descriptive language of the beautiful weather and scene also helps readers understand that this will be a fresh start for Jim—the serenity of the moment portends the easy life Jim will build for himself in Patusan (at least initially).
While Conrad’s prose is traditionally literary, the structure of the novel is much more experimental. For example, he intentionally splits the book up into three distinct parts—the first four chapters are told from the perspective of an unnamed omniscient narrator, Chapters 5 through 35 are told from the character Marlow’s perspective while at a dinner party, and Chapters 36 through 45 are again from Marlow’s perspective, but via letters that he has written to one specific (and skeptical) dinner party attendee.
This sort of fragmented narration—which includes the third-person narrator popping back in every now and then to explain, for example, how Marlow pauses his story to light his cigar—combined with the frequent jumps backward and forward in time is intentional on Conrad’s part. With these stylistic choices, he encourages readers to question the narrator and recognize that truth and clarity can’t come from a single person’s (or perhaps multiple people’s) perspective.
