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Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lord Jim, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fantasy vs. Reality
Justice and Duty
Racism and Colonialism
Truth and Perspective
Summary
Analysis
Jim trains for two years. When he finally goes to sea, he’s disappointed to find that the experience doesn’t match up with his fantasy adventures. Also, while life at sea is sometimes dangerous, the dangers are often vague and mundane—like when a spar falls and hits his leg, leaving him unable to walk normally for a long time.
As Jim transitions from boyhood to adulthood, he learns that the dangers of the adult world are less exciting than he anticipated—but no less dangerous. He learns the hard truth that even mundane things like a falling spar can be a danger to his health.
Themes
At port somewhere in Asia, Jim goes to a hospital for his leg injury. Eventually, he learns how to walk again and begins hanging around near the city’s dock, where other sailors congregate. Some sailors are brave and have an air of mystery, but most just seem like lazy white men who are eager to force their work on Asian or Arabic subordinates. Jim begins to hate this second group.
Jim’s story takes place during the height of the British Empire, when European sailors traveled the world extract resources to take back to their home countries. Jim correctly sees the exploitative nature of this arrangement, but his own actions don’t always align with his beliefs.
Themes
Literary Devices
Jim takes a new job as chief mate on a boat called the Patna, which is owned by a Chinese man, chartered by an Arab man, and commanded by a German man who claims to dislike his home country. The ship carries 800 travelers, many of them poor Asian people leaving behind rural lives in the hopes of starting anew. The Arab man in a white gown and big turban who is chartering the boat arrives with several servants, and soon the Patna sets off. The five white people on board live separately from the 800 passengers, although they can hear them.
The multinational makeup of the owners, crew, and passengers of the Patna reflects how the world was becoming more interconnected at the time Conrad wrote Lord Jim (late 1800s). It also reflects an increasing divide between the haves and have-nots—while some non-Europeans like the Arabic man who charters the boat can obtain positions of authority, many people were like the 800 pilgrims, forced by their desperate situations to put their trust in the hands of foreign men like Jim and the other crew members.
Themes
Literary Devices
