302 Conrad, Joseph
tains some of Conrad’s best writing, opinions have
been divided on the novel’s second part. Some see it
as a flawed attempt to round off the complex nar-
rative threads laid out in the first part, while other
critics view the two parts as intimately connected.
Among the things that make this novel fascinating
and intriguing is undoubtedly its mixture of het-
erogeneous styles—that is, its production of parallel
structures, repetitions, and echoing figures, which
together form a subtle image of modernity.
Despite being one of Conrad’s most autobio-
graphically revealing texts, the novel’s main plot is
partly based on the true story of an Englishman
(Augustine Podmore Williams) who, like Jim, aban-
doned a ship carrying pilgrims to Mecca. In Con-
rad’s fertile imagination, the story of a fate-haunted
sailor becomes a potent allegory of heroism and
failure in a world on the verge of a new century.
Eli Sorensen
Fate in Lord Jim
Fate is a mystifying concept, a nonhuman force that
conjures up a series of other concepts, such as chance
and fatalism. The latter involves the idea that events,
as they unfold in the present, are already decided,
whatever one does. Though related to fatalism,
the concept of fate is more uncertain. Ultimately,
fate is an explanatory category, which retrospec-
tively bestows a particular sequence of events with
meaning. Life can only be understood backwards,
but it must be lived forwards, says the philosopher
Kierkegaard, and this is one way of understanding
the concept of fate. To believe in fate is to be actively
involved in shaping one’s fate, which nonetheless
remains uncertain until one’s death.
If fate is beyond human control in reality, the
literary text (as a text that places human lives and
events within a given time frame) constitutes a
particularly apt medium to portray the dynamics
of fate. The eponymous character of Lord Jim is a
man who actively attempts to shape his own fate,
having identified himself as a hero of the adventure
stories he eagerly reads. The sea is where Jim hopes
to realize his romantic fate, but the reality turns out
to be rather different. In Lord Jim, there is a disjunc-
tion between dreams and reality. On the Patna, Jim
dreams of heroism, but when an unknown object
hits the Patna and a squall threatens on the horizon
(which means almost certain death for everyone
staying onboard), Jim pitifully loses control of the
situation. As he later insists, he suddenly finds him-
self in a rescue boat, as if pushed by some demonic
force; in reality, it appears that Jim simply fled like a
coward, leaving 800 pilgrims to their merciless fate.
Thereafter, Jim runs away every time someone
reminds him about his humiliating past. Suspended
in a void between his failed heroic ideal and the real-
ity of his life, Jim is helplessly unable to take his fate
into his own hands. Fascinated by Jim’s paradoxical
character—his unwavering faithfulness to an ideal
of heroism that blinds him from seeing reality (as
well as a deeper understanding of himself )—the
narrator, Marlow, pieces together the story of the
fate-obsessed sailor’s story from chance meetings,
dubious witnesses, and secondhand information, as
well as from Jim himself. Marlow creates a complex
narrative full of gaps, digressions, and suspensions,
and it is ultimately through Marlow that the mean-
ing and shape of Jim’s fate is constructed retrospec-
tively (rather than simply “reconstructed”).
While Marlow is the teller of Jim’s story, he
also takes an active part in reinstating the disgraced
sailor, which may restore Jim’s heroic fate. Through
Marlow’s friend Stein, Jim is given a position in the
settlement of Patusan, a place having little contact
with the outside world (and the memory of the
Patna episode). However, the resemblance between
the words Patna and Patusan suggests that a fateful
repetition of events awaits Jim in this new world;
Patusan will also become a place where he fails to
live up to his ideal fate. In Patusan, Jim—or “Lord
Jim” as he is called by the locals who admire him for
his courage and heroism—fulfills his dreams, and yet
there is something unreal about this idyllic place. He
may have escaped the fate given to him in reality, but
the price is the irreconcilability between the exotic
(and exoticized) Patusan and the harsh realities of
the outside world. In Patusan, Jim may start another
life only insofar as knowledge of his past life remains
repressed. But with Gentleman Brown’s arrival, Jim
is yet again confronted by his repressed past. The
irony is that insofar as Jim wants to maintain his
heroic and noble identity, he must let Brown go; to
kill him (because Brown has guessed Jim’s troubled