53 pages • 1 hour read
Joseph ConradLord Jim
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1900A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Ring: Authority and Trust
Stein entrusts Jim with a silver ring, thus transferring authority from one white man to another, signaling the continuance of the imperial mission. The ring originally comes from Doramin, so Stein believes that Jim can gain Doramin’s trust if he displays it when he reaches Patusan. Jim fears losing the ring; he is so anxious about keeping it close that he hangs it on a string around his neck. He believes that the ring confers authority—an authority that has not been earned—and thus he must keep it close. This reflects his anxiety over his presence in Patusan and symbolizes a broader anxiety within the novel about the imperial project itself. The ring itself functions, for a time, to give Jim access to all he desires during his time in Patusan.
Jim carries the ring with him while in Patusan, and the locals acknowledge its authority: They trust that Jim will make decisions that are for the good of the Bugis community. For example, when Jim asks Tamb’ Itam to deliver the all-important message to Dain Waris that he is to let Brown and his men pass freely down the river and back out to sea, Tamb’ Itam knows the importance of that message: Jim gives him the ring to signify that Tamb’ Itam assumes Jim’s authority in this instance. Eventually, however, the ring comes to symbolize a breach of trust. When Dain Waris is killed, Doramin and Jim are irrevocably at odds.
Dain Waris still wears the ring when he is killed. As the ring is removed from his finger and displayed to his father, Doramin releases a cry of pain and anguish. It is not only that his son has been killed, but also that his faith in the authority of Jim has been destroyed. When Jim approaches Doramin after Dain Waris’s death, Doramin still holds the ring in his lap, no longer a symbol of trust but a reminder of his loss. As he stands to confront Jim, the ring falls from his lap and rolls against Jim’s foot. Jim looks down at the “talisman that had opened for him the door of fame, love, and success” (350). The marker of Jim’s authority falls to the ground, signaling the inevitable end of his influence and power. There is no more trust; there is no more truce. Doramin believes that Jim has betrayed him, and he enacts his revenge in a definitive way.
The Patna: Rusted Vessel of Empire
The steamship Patna itself becomes a symbol for empire. The inquiry finds the ship is not fit and seaworthy from the beginning, just as the stated mission of empire, civilizing and protecting Indigenous peoples, proves to be unsound. The ship’s “cargo” is 800 pilgrims apparently bound for Mecca. They “surrender to the wisdom of white men,” who will guide them to paradise in the “iron shell of their fire ship,” just as the whites of empire were to protect and guide the Indigenous peoples to civilization (13).
The question of whether the passengers of the Patna matter at all to the whites once their fare is paid mirrors that of whether the civilizing and protecting of the locals mattered once their resources had been plundered. The shoddy protection and guidance given the passengers on the Patna stands for the very hollow promises of protection and guidance of empire. Not only are the passengers loaded onto an already unsound ship, they are packed aboard in numbers far greater than could be evacuated in the event of an accident. Even if they desired to, the whites could not protect them under such circumstances. Instead, though, the white crew abandons the passengers as soon as they believe the ship is damaged enough that it could sink. The theme of whites coming, taking what they want or need, and then leaving the Indigenous peoples alone and unprotected when things do not go as planned runs throughout Lord Jim, and its clearest symbol is the Patna.
Storytelling: Power and Authority in Narrative
It is significant that the story of Lord Jim is not told by Lord Jim himself: He is already dead by the time Marlow takes over the narrative. The question of who gets to tell the story becomes a major part of the story itself in Lord Jim. Jim is never in control of his own story—the authority lies with Marlow—and his attempts to tell it before his demise are often piecemeal, cut short or incomplete. Marlow believes Jim to be somewhat inarticulate, especially in moments of agitation. This speaks to the heart of the problematic nature of Jim’s (and, by extension, imperial) authority: It is, alternately, misunderstood or fully incomprehensible. After all, the vast majority of the people with whom Jim interacts do not speak English.
As Jim testifies before the inquiry regarding the Patna, he is trying to expand on his story but finds himself cut off to the point he feels his own testimony irrelevant. He is frustrated by the interruptions of the court: “He was coming to that, he was coming to that—and now, checked brutally, he had to answer by yes and no” (25). Similarly, following the killing of Dain Waris, Jim tries multiple times to write a letter to tell someone the circumstances of his death, but he finally gives up. The uncompleted letter is found among his belongings after his own death. When Marlow last leaves Patusan, Jim at first starts to give him a message to deliver to someone but he thinks better of it. It is as if Jim has no story to tell because he has no audience. And indeed, even Marlow has said Jim’s deeds might be the stuff of legend were they not performed in such utter isolation. Jim’s attempts to tell the story as it actually happened are fragmented and incomprehensible, like the experience of empire. Jim’s efforts to expand the “civilizing mission” of empire are, it would seem, inexplicable, his motivation opaque.
Marlow is the one who eventually tells the majority of the story to a satisfied, well-fed audience of cigar smokers looking to pass the time after dinner. Thus, the context in which Jim’s story is relayed is not only far removed in place but also distanced from any potential witnesses. Marlow, therefore, assumes an authority that he, like Jim in Patusan, may not have earned. In controlling the narrative, he can justify his actions as well as those of Stein and others who supported Jim as he assumed leadership in Patusan, with its tragic results. Because he must justify his own actions and those of his fellow agents, Marlow functions as an unreliable narrator. He has a vested interest in claiming Jim as “one of us,” as well as portraying him as a better and more equipped leader than previous agents. Undoubtedly, Doramin or Dain Waris would have told the tale quite differently. But they, as non-white subjects of a far-flung outpost of empire, do not get a voice at all. Though his agency is ultimately usurped by Marlow’s authority as narrator, Jim at least gets to pass along his riveting tale to his benefactor.
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