The ending provides a definitive end to Jim’s life but still raises questions about how to interpret the events. While Marlow clearly faults Jim for committing too much to his ideals, and particularly for abandoning Jewel, he doesn’t necessarily see Jim as a bad person, just a flawed one. Jim seems to have acted in the foolishness of youth, and the butterfly imagery that closes the novel reinforces this idea: unlike nature, which can achieve the degree of perfection that Jim dreamed of in his heroic fantasies, humans are fundamentally flawed and fated to fail, decay, and die. On the other hand, for better and for worse, Jim will always be preserved in Marlow’s memory as he was, just as Stein’s butterflies are preserved under glass.