1970
By choosing the device of a narrator within the narrator, Joseph Conrad (left) was forced to create further devices to avoid awkwardness. It would have been unwieldy switching back and forth between the omnipotent narrator and Marlow; yet Conrad needed a means of widening the view of Jim. Therefore, there are several narrators, including Jim himself, conveniently meeting Marlow and explaining a view. One of the most interesting aspects of Conrad’s wheels within wheels could be called Marlow’s search for “us”. The search can be followed through Marlow’s conversations with six characters.
THE CHIEF ENGINEER
Marlow visits the engineer admittedly seeking an answer to Jim’s character. “I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse.”1 This excuse would relieve Marlow’s concern there might be “a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth...resembled [Jim’s] youth.”2 But Marlow finds no answer from the engineer, only the confusion of D.T. delirium.
BRIERLY
Captain Brierly is as hard and prickly as his name. He used the thorns of superiority to keep the world from touching him. Marlow is uncomfortable rubbing against Brierly and does not get any direct insight from his conversation with the Captain. Brierly is Jim, if Jim had never fallen.3 Brierly, however, has no outward feeling toward Jim as a kindred spirit, for to him, Jim is a failure best kept hidden. “Well, then, let him creep twenty feet underground and stay there!”4 But inwardly, Brierly recognized the same question as Marlow: Jim is every decent man and if Jim could fail, so could Brierly. This is a fact Brierly would rather not face and he commits suicide rather than change failure.
THE FRENCHMAN
The Frenchman, the man of potential never lived up to,6 gives voice to Marlow’s feeling about fear. “[The Frenchman] had made out the point at once: he did get hold of the only thing I cared about.”7 Fear is always with all men, but they act bravely because of certain inducements, the opinions of others and of faith. Jim had none of these inducements when he failed and who could say all men would not do the same.8 (This follows the destructive nature theme Marlow felt while visiting the engineer and later expressed by Stein.)
STEIN
Stein allows Conrad some symbolic philosophizing about Jim and the nature of man.10 It is also a chance for Marlow to confirm his feelings about Jim. Stein, as do all the characters, hints at Jim’s fate. “The way is
the destructive element submit yourself...”11 That is, man cannot have his dream of being about the world. Man must submit to his disaster and use it for support. This is what Brierly understood and could not face.
JEWEL
Marlow no longer seeks confirmation of Jim being “us’. He is certain of this, but fails in attempting to make Jewel understand. Her attitude is very interesting. She showed understanding for Cornelius, believing he was so wretched he needed no further punishment;12 yet she cannot forgive Jim his last act because this broke his promise to stay with her. “He was false,”13 she says and no one can make her understand Jim’s “truth to himself”.14 She represents the innocence Jim lost.15
BROWN
Gentleman Brown is the affirmation and completes the story, Marlow’s search and a plot cycle. Jim was brought to his failing in the company of scoundrels, and in such company comes his self-retribution. As Brierly was too “good” to accept the acts of Jim, Brown is too “evil”. “He a man! Hell! He was a hollow sham!”17 This fact, that the evil Brown cannot understand Jim is the affirmation that Jim is one of “Us”.
But suspected, confirmed and affirmed, there is nothing more Marlow can do about Jim. Jim is dead and Marlow must leave him as Stein must someday leave his own butterflies.18
NOTES: MARLOW’S SEARCH FOR “US”
1 Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, Norton Critical Edition (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968), p. 31.
2 Ibid., p. 32.
3 Ibid., p. 2, epigraph referring to Adam becoming as one of us by eating the fruit. Jim becomes one of us by jumping ship. If he had not jumped, he would have become like Brierly. Jim fell as we all can fall.
4 Ibid., p. 41.
5 Ibid., pp. 39-40.
6 Ibid., p. 87.
7 Ibid., p. 89.
8 Ibid., pp. 89-90.
9 Ibid.’ p. 130.
10 Tony Tanner, “Butterflies and Beetles -- Conrad’s Two Truths”. Norton Critical Edition of Lord Jim (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968), pp. 447-462.
11 Conrad, p. 130.
12 Ibid., p. 176.
13 Ibid., p. 213.
14 Ibid., p. 213.
15 That is, Jewel may be saintly, as Jim would have been saintly had he not fallen. However, she seems to have a cynicism he does not. A study of her would be interesting, especially an examination of the possibility that she is Stein’s daughter. The relationship between Stein and Jim may be subtler than normally proposed.
16 Brown is not “Us”; he is one of “them”. Since Brown cannot understand Jim, it affirms Marlow’s belief that Jim is one of “Us”. If Brown had been able to understand Jim, it would have meant that Jim was one of “them”.
17 Conrad, p. 209.
18 Ibid., p. 253
To learn more about Joseph Conrad and his works, click on the title of this post.
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