Summary Marlow now recounts more of what Jim told him. On that fateful night, Jim could recall that he was running along the deck, stepping with difficulty over the sleeping Moslems. One man asked for water, and Jim hit him, then thrust his own water bottle at him. Later, on […]

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Summary During dinner, the wine loosened Jim’s tongue, and he began his painful story. Now, he has no money, no job, no future as a sailor, and he has shamed his pastor father, who is incapable of understanding what has happened. Impulsively, Jim asks Marlow if he can understand it […]

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Summary Marlow now tells the dinner guests more about Jim’s trial before the panel of inquiry. The trial, he says, became something of a public “event.” Here was a handsome young man on trial for leaving almost a thousand poor and ragged religious pilgrims to almost certain death. Justice demanded […]

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Summary After dinner, while talking to some guests, Marlow recalls more details about the much-discussed “Patna incident.” It was his “guardian devil,” he says, that caused him to have such a keen interest in the inquiry. It seems that four officers deserted the Patna when they believed it to be […]

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Summary The narrative resumes a month or so later, and we are now in the police court of an Eastern port. An official hearing was called to investigate “the Patna incident” in an attempt to determine what struck the ship and what happened on board after the mysterious collision that […]

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Summary The stillness of the night and the serenity of the stars seemed to shed an assurance of everlasting security, and the Patna, moving smoothly and routinely across the Arabian Sea, seemed to be a perfect part of a safe universe. On deck, Jim paced during his night watch. As […]

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Summary After two years of naval training, Jim’s dreams of romance seemingly became reality. While still a young man, he was assigned to be the chief mate of a fine ship, but it was soon apparent that his new job was both monotonous and barren. Yet, curiously, Jim was addicted, […]

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Summary Jim was an impressive young man — about six feet tall and powerfully built — extremely intense, self-assertive, and lways dressed in spotless white. He was a popular and successful water-clerk — that is, he competed against all the other water-clerks in port to be the very first man […]

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Lord Jim A tall, powerfully built young man with piercing blue eyes and a deep voice. On his first assignment at sea, aboard the Patna, Jim abandons 800 Moslem pilgrims because he thinks that the ship is going to explode momentarily. Afterward, he is terribly ashamed and unable to live […]

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We are introduced to Jim (later, Lord Jim) at a time when he was working as a water-clerk for a ship-chandler firm in the Far East. It was menial work, but Jim seemed fairly happy, and everyone liked him. They knew him simply as “Jim.” Yet, as the plot unfolds, […]

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