Lord Jim Essay

The writers, I do believe, who get the best and most unchangeable response from the readers are the writers who offer a happy stop by moral development. By a happy ending, I do non mean mere fortunate events a marriage or a last-minute rescue from death nevertheless some kind of sacred reassessment of moral reconciliation, even with the self, even at death. In his literary masterpiece, Lord Jim, Joseph Conrads theme development is complex but mirrors Fay Weldons statement.Dealing with the paradox of whether a human being is capable of two good and evil the moral focus of the novel is the degree of the exchange characters guilt, his related attempts at self-justification, and in the end, whether or not good whole caboodle can make up for one bad act. As allow be supported in the following paragraphs, Lord Jim is a humbug of guilt, punishment, obsession to regain lost honor, and moral rescue. Within the opening pages of the novel, Conrads aboriginal character is presente d as less than the romantic hero.Described as being an inch, perhaps two, under six feet (Conrad, p. 9) Jim, the young son of a minister, is drawn to the sea as a youth and has developed a romantic view of himself as one who will meet crisis with insensibility and determination. Ultimately, he is not shaken in this belief by his trouble to reach the cutter of his prepare ship. As the plot continues, due to an illness, Jim is left hand behind in Singapore when his ship returns to England. As a result, he decides to take berth on a local steamer, the Patna, which is involved in an accident.Faced with what he determines to be a hopeless situation, he jumps and leave his ship when it appears that the Patna is going to sink with all 800 passengers onboard. When it acquires cheatn that the passengers survived, Jim becomes a societal outcast. Despite the fact that he was one of us (Conrad, p. 63) his jump into a well-into an everlasting deep hole. . . . (Conrad, p. 87) associates h im with the other officers, known as troublemakers, who have tatterdemalion the Patna. His offense is one upon which the Court of Enquiry can have no mercy.Jim however, refuses to accept this association and does his utmost to distinguish himself from them as evidenced by the quote They all got out of it in one way or another, but it wouldnt do for me. (Conrad, p. 64) He even goes to the extent of attempting to rationalise himself as is evidenced when he reports to Marlow, There was not the thickness of a sheet of paper between the right and wrong of this affair. (Conrad, p. 100) Not but convincing however, his hope is that he can ultimately rehabilitate himself.As in his first failure in the training ship, he rest certain that he can still be prepared for each emergency and has only(prenominal) been betrayed by circumstances. He finds it impossible to accept his failing and chooses not to stay in a place where men know his story. Therefore, he is driven farther and farther east in the seem of a refuge where he can start over over again by establishing himself as a trustworthy man and seeking trip from his feelings of guilt. In what seems to be a distinct second part of the have Lord Jim, Jim is able find relief from his guilt by subsidence in the remote village of Patusan.Acting as an agent for the bargainer Stein, it is here that he rises to be Lord Jim, where the jump is never questioned, and the natives become dependent on his strength and character. It lastly seems that he has victoryfully dislocated himself from his past, in a place where, The stream of civilization, as if divided on a headland a hundred miles north of Patusan, branches east and south-west, exit its pains and valleys, its old trees and its old mankind, neglected and isolated. (Conrad, p170)Despite the fact that he has achieved the conquest of love, honor, mens confidence, (Conrad, p. 169) his past comes in search of him. man Brown and his crew invade the wall of fore sts (Conrad, p. 307), which keeps Jim in his isolation. Physically, as unflinching by numbers, the people of Patusan are more that a match for Brown, but mentally Jim is helpless before this man who holds scorn for mankind and who would pinch a man as if only to demonstrate his poor persuasion of the creature. Conrad, p. 261) Brown opens the wound of Jims past when he asks whether he had nothing fishy in his spiritedness to remember that he was so damnedly hard upon a man trying to get out of a deadly hole by the first means that came to hand-and so on and so on. And there ran through the rough talk a venous blood vessel of subtle reference to their common blood, an assumption of common experience a sickening suggestion of common guilt, of secret knowledge that was like a bond of their minds and of their hearts. (Conrad, p. 86) Everything that Brown says recalls Jims past weaknesses and thusly undermines his sure thing that he has placed his past cowardice behind him. As a resu lt, Jim finds that his inner peace was just an illusion, that his fate, revolted, was forcing his hand (Conrad, p. 290), and that his ability to act decisively is paralyzed. He allows Brown and his followers to leave the country unharmed if they stipulation to take no life. They however break the pact by kill the chiefs son, Dain Waris.With solitude shattered, Jim sees the path of destiny before him because he guaranteed the lives of all the people against Brown and his men. He feels that he can only conquer his fatal destiny by suicide, so that the dark powers should not rob him twice of his peace. (Conrad, p. 302) Though granted the opportunity, he does not try to escape with Jewel, but allows himself to be killed by Doramin. Upon reflection of the events of Jims life Marlow understands, with sad irony, that for Jim the sacrifice might seem an extraordinary achiever (Conrad, p. 07) for that in the short moment of his last proud and unflinching glance, he had held the face of t hat opportunity which, like an Eastern bride, had come veiled to his side. (Conrad, p. 307) Therefore, at last, Jim feels himself become a hero by finally being given the heroic chance he had been waiting for. Twice before (on the decks of the training ship and Patna) he had failed to act heroically when given the opportunity to act with honor and courage. At the end of the novel, by offering his own life to Doramin, Jim is able to face and pass the final test with bravery although it be him his life.Thus, the novel ends on a positive note because Conrads central character triumphs when he finally receives moral redemption. It certainly may punishing peculiar to say that the death of the hero provides a successful ending to the novel. Usually, such an ending would be considered to be unsuccessful and in fact, to be a tragedy. However, in Joseph Conrads Lord Jim, as the central character, Jim is plagued by guilt over an incident that occurred in his youth. It is this very incident that has dominated his life from the very beginning pages and despite Jims conviction of intrinsic blamelessness, (Conrad, p. 4) he was to blame, and the rest of the book is taken up with his attempts to deal with his actions. He, in a sense, becomes obsessed with redemption and each choice he makes is controlled by this need. It is only in the end that he comes to the realization of the significance of his choices and to the fulfillment of his destiny. Cowardice in the face of the crucial test was contained in Jims destiny and only by realizing that he will never be able to run away from himself could he atone for his offense.In the end, as described by Marlow, Jim passes away under a cloud (Conrad, p. 307), as he had lived under a cloud. Marlow suggests the irony of his narrative by verbalise that Not in the wildest days of his boyish visions could (Jim) have seen the alluring render of such an extraordinary success (Conrad, p. 307) Thus, it is only through this last and fi nal act that Conrads Lord Jim was finally able to reach success by bravely giving up his life for respect, honor, and redemption.