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Lord Jim is a novel by Joseph Conrad originally published as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine from October 1899 to November 1900. An early and primary event in the story is the abandonment of a passenger ship in distress by its crew, including a young British seaman named Jim. He is publicly censured for this action and the novel follows his later attempts at coming to terms with himself and his past.
In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Lord Jim 85th on its list of the 100 best English language novels of the 20th century.
Recovered from an injury, Jim seeks a position on the Patna, a steamer serving the transport of 800 "pilgrims of an exacting faith" to a port on the Red Sea. He is hired as first mate. After some days of smooth sailing, the ship hits something in the night and begins taking on water. The captain thinks the ship will sink, and Jim agrees, but wants to put the passengers on the few boats before that can happen. The captain and two other crewmen think only to save themselves, freeing a boat. The helmsmen remain, as no order has been given to do otherwise. In a crucial moment, Jim jumps into the boat with the captain. A few days later, they are picked up by an outbound steamer. When they reach port, they learn that the Patna and its passengers were brought in safely by a crew from a French gun ship. The captain's actions in abandoning both ship and passengers are against the code of seamen and the crew is publicly vilified. When the other men leave town before the magistrate's court can be convened, Jim is the only crew member left to testify. All lose their certificates to sail. Brierly, a captain of perfect reputation who is on the panel of the court, commits suicide days after the trial.
Captain Charles Marlow attends the trial and meets Jim, whose behavior he condemns, but the young man intrigues him. Wracked with guilt, Jim confesses his shame to Marlow, who finds him a place to live in the home of a friend. Jim is accepted there but leaves abruptly when an engineer who had also abandoned the ship appears to work at the house. Jim then finds work as a ship chandler's clerk in ports of the East Indies, always succeeding in the job then leaving abruptly when the Patna is mentioned. In Bangkok, he gets in a fistfight. Marlow realizes that Jim needs a new situation, something that will take him far away from modern ports and keep him occupied so that he can finally forget his guilt. Marlow consults his friend Stein, who sees that Jim is a romantic and considers his situation. Stein offers Jim to be his trade representative or factor in Patusan, a village on a remote island shut off from most commerce, which Jim finds to be exactly what he needs.
After his initial challenge of entering the settlement of native Malay and Bugis people, Jim manages to earn their respect by relieving them of the depredations of the bandit Sherif Ali and protecting them from the corrupt local Malay chief, Rajah Tunku Allang. He builds a solid link with Doramin, the Bugis friend of Stein, and his son Dain Waris. For his leadership, the people call him "tuan Jim", or Lord Jim. Jim also wins the love of Jewel, a young woman of mixed race, and is "satisfied... nearly". Marlow visits Patusan once, two years after Jim arrived there, and sees his success. Jewel does not believe that Jim will stay, as her father left her mother, and she is not reassured that Marlow or any other will not arrive to take him from her. Her mother had been married before her death to Cornelius, previously given the role of factor by Stein for her benefit. Cornelius is a lazy, jealous, and brutal man who treats his stepdaughter cruelly and steals the supplies Stein sends for sale; he is displaced by Jim's arrival and resents him for it.
"Gentleman" Brown, a marauder captain notorious for his evil ways, then arrives in Patusan, his small crew on the brink of starvation. The local defense led by Dain Waris manages to prevent the marauders from looting the village and holds them entrenched in place while Jim is away in the island's interior. When Jim returns, Brown deceptively wins Jim's mercy, who hesitantly negotiates to allow them to leave Patusan unobstructed, but reminds Brown that the long passage down river to the sea will be guarded by armed men. Cornelius sees his chance to get rid of Jim. He tells Brown of a side channel that will bypass most of the defenses, which Brown uses, stopping briefly to ambush the defenders he finds. Dain Waris is killed among others, and Brown sails on, leaving Cornelius behind; Jim's man Tamb' Itam kills Cornelius for his betrayal. Jim is mortified when he receives word of the death of his good friend, and resolves to leave Patusan. Jewel, who had wanted Jim to attack Brown and his ship, is distraught. Jim then goes directly to Doramin and takes responsibility for the death of his only son. Doramin uses his flintlock pistols, given him by Stein, to shoot Jim in the chest.
On his regular route, Marlow arrives at Stein's house a few days after this event, finding Jewel and Tamb' Itam there, and tries to make sense of what happened. Jewel stays in Stein's house.
Marlow: Sea captain in the merchant service of the British Empire who helps Jim after his fall from grace, trying to understand how "one of us" could lack the bravery and judgment expected of seamen. Marlow is also the narrator of three of Conrad's other works: Heart of Darkness, Youth, and Chance.
Jim: Young parson's son who takes to the sea, training for the merchant service as steam ships mix with sailing ships. He dreams of heroic deeds. He is a strong, tall, blond Englishman whose life is the story told by Marlow.
Captain Gustav: Captain of the Patna, an Australian born in Germany, who is interested in the money made from this ship, with no concern for his honor as a captain. He is a man of huge girth. He orders the engineers to free a boat for them to leave the ship. After learning ashore that the ship came in ahead of them, he knows his certificate will be cancelled and he leaves, never seen again.
Ship's engineers: Three men who keep the steam boiler working; one is George, who dies of a heart attack on the Patna as the others leave the ship. Another shows up later by chance at the same place where Jim is living, driving Jim away. The third becomes completely drunk, left in the hospital.
Montague Brierly: Captain in the merchant service with a perfect reputation. He sits in the court that hears the case of the Patna crew, telling Marlow that Jim ought to hide somewhere, as he can never work as a seaman again. A few days after the trial, this superior man ("indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence") kills himself by jumping off his ship at sea, leaving no explanation.
Stein: Head of Stein & Co., friend of Marlow, and a man with a long, interesting life. He has had success in trade in the East, collecting produce from various ports in the Dutch colonial areas and settling far from his native Bavaria after losing in the uprisings of 1848. He learned botany and natural philosophy, which became his passionate hobby, gaining him a reputation for all the specimens he sent to contacts in Europe in this age of scientific discovery. He was married and had a child, both lost to him by disease. He understands Jim's temperament instantly.
Jewel: Daughter of a Dutch - Malay woman and a white European man, never named, who deserted them. Her stepfather is Cornelius. Her mother died a year or two before she meets Jim.
Cornelius: Former factor for Stein & Co., on account of his wife, whom Stein admired. He is a lazy man of no morals, and brutal. He is Malacca Portuguese. When replaced by Jim, he does not leave the area, nor does he find any useful occupation for himself. He connives with the marauder Brown to kill Jim, which happens indirectly when Brown's men spontaneously kills Dain Waris. Cornelius is killed by Tamb' Itam, who sees him after the attack and realizes the role he played.
De Jongh: Friend to Marlow, and the last of the ship's chandlers who accepts Jim on Marlow's recommendation.
Doramin: Old chief of the Bugis people in Patusan and father of Dain Waris, his only son. He was a friend to Stein, and the two exchanged gifts on parting: Doramin gave a ring to Stein, and Stein gave pistols to Doramin. He becomes an ally to Jim.
Dain Waris: The only son of Doramin; a young, strong, and fiercely devoted leader of his people. He becomes fast friends with Jim.
Sherif Ali: Local bandit who is a trial to all others in Patusan, extorting fees and stealing crops and resources from others. He is defeated by Jim, but not killed.
Rajah Tunku Allang: Malay chief in Patusan who took Jim prisoner on his first entry into the country. Jim escapes, starting life there on his own terms.
Tamb' Itam: Malay servant and loyal bodyguard to Jim.
Captain Brown: A cruel captain of a latter day pirate crew, who kills because he can, and is not a success in life. He has a ship in poor condition and a crew of men similar to him when he runs short of food near Patusan. He goes up the river to the village, which successfully forces him to retreat to a nearby hilltop. On leaving, Brown orders a vengeful attack on Patusan's defenders, killing Dain Waris, which leads to the end of Jim's life. Marlow meets Brown in a hospital just before his death, and hears the story of the encounter from Brown's viewpoint.
The opening event in Lord Jim may have been based in part on an actual abandonment of a ship. On 17 July 1880, S.S. Jeddah sailed from Singapore bound for Penang and Jeddah, with 778 men, 147 women and 67 children on board. The passengers were Muslims from the Malay states, traveling to Mecca for the hajj (holy pilgrimage). Jeddah sailed under the British flag and was crewed largely by British officers. After rough weather conditions, the Jeddah began taking on water. The hull sprang a large leak, the water rose rapidly, and the captain and officers abandoned the heavily listing ship. They were picked up by another vessel and taken to Aden where they told a story of violent passengers and a foundering ship. The pilgrims were left to their fate, and apparently certain death. However, on 8 August 1880 a French steamship towed Jeddah into Aden the pilgrims had survived. An official inquiry followed, as it does in the novel.
The inspiration for the character of Jim was the chief mate of the Jeddah, "Austin" Podmore Williams, whose grave was tracked down to Singapore's Bidadari Cemetery by Gavin Young in his book, In Search of Conrad. As in the novel, Williams created a new life for himself, returning to Singapore and becoming a successful ship's chandler.
Conrad may also have been influenced by the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace's 1869 account of his travels and of the native peoples of the islands of Southeast Asia, The Malay Archipelago; the character Stein is based on Wallace. The second part of the novel is based in some part on the life of James Brooke, the first Rajah of Sarawak. Brooke was an Indian born English adventurer who in the 1840s managed to gain power and set up an independent state in Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. Some critics, however, think that the fictional Patusan was intended not to be part of Borneo but of Sumatra.
In 1998, the Modern Library Board ranked Lord Jim 85th on its list of the 100 best English language novels of the 20th century. In 1999, the French newspaper Le Monde conducted a contest among readers to rank which of 200 novels of the 20th century they remembered best. Seventeen thousand responses yielded the final list, which placed Lord Jim at number 75. The complete list is found in Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century in English, and also in French Wikipedia.
The novel is in two main parts, firstly Jim's lapse aboard the Patna and his consequent fall, and secondly an adventure story about Jim's rise and the tale's denouement in the fictional country of Patusan, presumed a part of the Indonesian archipelago. The main themes surround young Jim's potential ("he was one of us", says Marlow, the narrator) thus sharpening the drama and tragedy of his fall, his subsequent struggle to redeem himself, and Conrad's further hints that personal character flaws will almost certainly emerge given an appropriate catalyst. Conrad, speaking through his character Stein, called Jim a romantic figure, and indeed Lord Jim is arguably Conrad's most romantic novel.
In addition to the lyricism and beauty of Conrad's descriptive writing, the novel is remarkable for its sophisticated structure. The bulk of the novel is told in the form of a story recited by the character Marlow to a group of listeners, and the conclusion is presented in the form of a letter from Marlow. Within Marlow's narration, other characters also tell their own stories in nested dialogue. Thus, events in the novel are described from several viewpoints, and often out of chronological order.
The reader is left to form an impression of Jim's interior psychological state from these multiple external points of view. Some critics (using deconstruction) contend that this is impossible and that Jim must forever remain an enigma, whereas others argue that there is an absolute reality the reader can perceive and that Jim's actions may be ethically judged.
However, there is an analysis that shows in the novel a fixed pattern of meaning and an implicit unity that Conrad said the novel has. As he wrote to his publisher four days after completing Lord Jim, it is "the development of one situation, only one really, from beginning to end." A metaphysical question pervades the novel and helps unify it: whether the "destructive element" that is the "spirit" of the Universe has intention and, beyond that, malevolent intention toward any particular individual or is, instead, indiscriminate, impartial and indifferent. Depending (as a corollary) on the answer to that question is the degree to which the particular individual can be judged responsible for what he does or does not do; and various responses to the question or its corollary are provided by the several characters and voices in the novel.
The omniscient narrator of the first part remarks of the trial: "They wanted facts. Facts! They demanded facts from him, as if facts could explain anything!" Ultimately, Jim remains mysterious, as seen through a mist: "that mist in which he loomed interesting if not very big, with floating outlines a straggler yearning inconsolably for his humble place in the ranks... It is when we try to grapple with another man's intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun." It is only through Marlow's recitation that Jim lives for us the relationship between the two men incites Marlow to "tell you the story, to try to hand over to you, as it were, its very existence, its reality the truth disclosed in a moment of illusion."
Postcolonial interpretations of the novel, while not as intensive as that of Heart of Darkness, point to similar themes in the two novels the protagonist sees himself as part of a 'civilizing mission', and the story involves a 'heroic adventure' at the height of the British Empire's hegemony. Conrad's use of a protagonist with a dubious history has been interpreted as an expression of increasing doubts with regard to the Empire's mission; literary critic Elleke Boehmer sees the novel, along with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as part of a growing suspicion that 'a primitive and demoralizing other' is present within the governing order.
To put Jim's anguish into perspective, one must have committed in his past some crime morally or legally. Anyone who has not done so will never fully understand what Jim must do for redemption. Jim longs for his chance to restore what he lost by one single misstep (literally and figuratively). He believes that in the end it is a "debt" that can only be paid in his death.
The book has twice been adapted into film: Lord Jim (1925), directed by Victor Fleming, Lord Jim (1965), directed by Richard Brooks and starring Peter O'Toole as Jim.
The 1979 Hindi film Kaala Patthar has strong traces of Lord Jim.
Lord Jim is a 1925 silent film starring Percy Marmont (in the title role), Noah Beery and Duke Kahanamoku. The movie was directed by Victor Fleming and based on the novel Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. A print is preserved at the Library of Congress and at UCLA Film and TV.
Starring: Percy Marmont - Lord Jim, Shirley Mason - Jewel, Noah Beery - Captain Brown, Raymond Hatton - Cornelius, Joseph Dowling - Stein, George Magrill - Dain Waris, Nick De Ruiz - Sultan, J. Gunnis Davis - Scoggins, Jules Cowles - Yankee Joe, Duke Kahanamoku - Tamb Itam
Lord Jim is a 1965 Technicolor adventure film made by Columbia Pictures in Super Panavision. The picture was produced and directed by Richard Brooks with Jules Buck and Peter O'Toole as associate producers, from a screenplay by Brooks. The film stars O'Toole, James Mason, Curt Jόrgens, Eli Wallach, Jack Hawkins, Paul Lukas and Daliah Lavi.
It is the second film adaptation of the 1900 novel of the same name by Joseph Conrad. The first was a silent film released in 1925 and directed by Victor Fleming.
The film received two BAFTA nominations, for best British art direction and best British cinematography.
The film had its world premiere on 15 February 1965 at the Odeon Leicester Square in the West End of London as the Royal Film Performance in the presence of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother; Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon and the Earl of Snowdon.
Jim (Peter O'Toole) is a promising young English merchant seaman who rises to first officer under Captain Marlow (Jack Hawkins). However, Jim is injured and left at Java. When he is fit again, he signs on with the first available ship, a dilapidated freighter called the S.S. Patna, crammed with hundreds of Muslims on pilgrimage to Mecca. When a storm threatens the leaking ship, the crew panics and takes to the lifeboats without a thought for their passengers; Jim in a moment of weakness joins them.
When they reach port, the sailors are stunned to find an intact Patna already there before them. The rest of the crew disappears, but Jim insists on confessing his guilt at an official inquiry and is stripped of his sailing papers. Filled with self loathing, Jim becomes a drifter.
One day, he saves a boatload of gunpowder from sabotage. Stein (Paul Lukas), the cargo's owner, offers him an extremely dangerous job: transporting it and some rifles by river to distant Patusan to help Stein's old friend, the town's chief, lead an uprising against bandits led by the General (Eli Wallach).
When Schomberg (Akim Tamiroff) is bribed to deny Stein the use of the motorboat he had promised, Jim takes a sailboat with two native crewmen, leaving the aged Stein behind. As they near their destination, one of the crewmen reveals himself to be working for the General. He kills the other sailor then flees to warn the warlord. Jim manages to hide the cargo before he is captured.
Though tortured, he refuses to divulge the location. This surprises Cornelius (Curt Jόrgens), the drunken, cowardly agent of Stein's trading company, who in fact obeys the General. That night, the Girl (Daliah Lavi) leads Jim's rescue.
Jim distributes the arms and plans the attack on the General's stockade. He is assisted by Waris (Juzo Itami), the chief's son. After much bloody fighting, Jim delivers the crushing blow, pushing a barrel of gunpowder through a hail of bullets into the bandits' final stronghold, blowing it up along with the General. Only Cornelius survives, hidden in a secret underground room with the General's loot.
Jim is hailed as a hero. One of the grateful natives bestows the title tuan on him. The Girl translates it as "Lord".
While Jim is content to live in Patusan with the Girl, Cornelius and Schomberg recruit notorious cutthroat "Gentleman" Duncan Brown (James Mason) and his men to steal the treasure. However, they are detected and cornered. Brown offers to leave peacefully, but no one, with one exception, trusts him. Jim insists they be allowed to go, going so far as to offer his own life as forfeit if anybody is killed as a result. However, under cover of heavy fog, Brown and his men make one last attempt at the treasure, killing a sentry and fatally wounding Waris, before Waris and Jim dispatch them.
Afterward, Stein pleads with his grieving old friend to spare Jim; the chief agrees not to hinder Jim's departure, but if he is still in Patusan the next day, there will be no mercy. Despite Stein's urgings, Jim refuses to desert again. In broad daylight, he calmly walks up to the chief as the people are lined up for Waris's funeral procession, cocks the rifle he brought and places it near the chief, then awaits his fate. The bodies of Jim and Waris are cremated together.
Starring: Peter O'Toole Lord Jim, James Mason "Gentleman" Brown, Curt Jόrgens Cornelius, Eli Wallach The General, Jack Hawkins Marlow, Paul Lukas Stein, Daliah Lavi The Girl (Jewel), Akim Tamiroff Schomberg, Juzo Itami Waris, Tatsuo Saito Du-Ramin, Andrew Keir Brierly, head of the Patna inquiry, Jack MacGowran Robinson, a Patna crewman, Eric Young Malay, Noel Purcell Captain Chester, Walter Gotell Captain of Patna, Rafiq Anwar Moslem Leader (as Rafik Anwar) .
Brooks optioned the novel in 1957.
The film was made at Shepperton Studios, England, and on location in Angkor Wat, Cambodia, Hong Kong and Malacca, Malaysia. In a 1971 interview, O'Toole spoke of some of the difficulties of location filming:
The three months we spent in Cambodia were dreadful. Sheer hell. A nightmare. There we were, all of us, knee deep in lizards and all kinds of horrible insects. And everyone hating us. Awful.
It was photographed in Super Panavision 70 by Freddie Young. The music score by Bronislaw Kaper featured the use of gamelan musicians. The crew and cast of the film were joined by Cambodian translator Dith Pran, who was a liaison between Cambodians and the filmmakers and cast. Later he left the country after the 1975 Communist takeover and his own imprisonment, which were told in the 1984 film The Killing Fields with Haing S. Ngor as Pran.
The film opened to bad reviews and to minimal box office returns. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times called Lord Jim a "big, gaudy, clanging color film" that "misses at being either Conrad or sheer entertainment cinema." Nor was he satisfied with O'Toole's performance, characterizing it as "so sullen, soggy and uncertain, especially toward the end, that it is difficult to find an area of recognizable sensitivity in which one can make contact with him." Variety was equally critical, stating, "Brooks has teetered between making it a fullblooded, no - holds - barred adventure yarn and the fascinating psychological study that Conrad wrote." O'Toole's performance was described as "self - indulgent and lacking in real depth." The consensus was that Brooks, who did good dramas about people, didn't have what it took to make a classic story. O'Toole, however, would later stand by the film: he said the role of Lord Jim was the finest role he ever did.
The film currently holds a 54% rating on review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes.
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
2005: AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores Nominated