finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Lord Jim/section_0_part_0.txt
Lord Jim.chapter 1
chapter 1
{"name": "Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapter-1", "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 to greet a newly docked sea captain and steer him to a vast supply store filled with all the items that a ship would need for its next voyage. While the ship remained docked, Jim had to court, cajole, and serve the captain as a loyal friend and as a patient, good-natured companion so that the captain would spend a great deal of money at the ship-chandler's. Jim always drew good wages, but he never stayed at one port for very long; he had \"something of the unknown\" about him, something that set him apart, something which Conrad calls \"an exquisite sensibility.\" We are also told that for many years, Jim went by only one name -- Jim -- because he wanted to hide a \"fact\" about himself and when that \"fact\" surfaced in seaport gossip, Jim would leave town very suddenly, always traveling \"farther east,\" toward the rising sun. It was while Jim was working among the Malays that he acquired the other half of the name by which men would know him. The natives dubbed him \"Tuan Jim,\" or Lord Jim. Seemingly, Jim became interested in sailing and adventure as a young boy, because one day, after reading some \"light holiday literature,\" presumably about sailing, he immediately decided that the sea would be his vocation. Not long afterward, he was sent to a \"training ship for officers.\" He was generally well-liked at the school; he was cool-headed, clever, and had an enviable physique. His job stationed him at the ship's fore-top, from which he could scan the surroundings and look down at the other boys, as if from a very privileged distance. From his high post, Jim daydreamed that he was being readied for a heroic \"role\"; he romantically envisioned himself rescuing people from hurricanes and then surviving half-naked on a deserted island. He saw himself quelling tempers and putting down inflamed mutinies. In his dreams, he was always the essence of fidelity and duty. One winter's day at dusk, Jim heard a call to help a coaster which had crashed into a schooner. He stopped and held his breath in awe while the other boys clamored over the rails and were lowered away. Jim was half-ready to leap overboard when the captain unexpectedly gripped his shoulder. \"Too late, youngster,\" he said. \"Better luck next time.\" Later the other boys, particularly one boy with \"a face like a girl's,\" loudly celebrated their successful rescue of the victims of the collision. The pretty young boy -- and not Jim -- was the hero of the evening. Jim pondered over his failure to act, his hesitating too long. Why hadn't he acted? Next time, he vowed to himself, he would act faster and better than anyone, but this time, why should he have risked life and limb for such a trivial \"rescue effort\"? He breathed deeply, eager for a new challenge that would be worthy of him.", "analysis": "Our first view of Lord Jim, the protagonist of the novel, is that of a dedicated and moral person; consequently, we are immediately aware that this novel will deal with moral and ethical issues. Many critics refer to this novel as an \"impressionistic\" novel because we are given the impression of a man who, at three critical times in his life, is faced with a difficult choice, and, each time, he chooses incorrectly. First, he must choose whether, as a cadet, he will join in rescuing a sinking ship; he doesn't. Second, he must choose whether or not to jump from the sinking Patna, leaving 800 pilgrims to drown; he jumps. Third, he must choose whether or not to have Gentleman Brown killed; he chooses not to. In each case, because of his romantic illusions, Lord Jim makes the wrong decision and we see how these wrong decisions affect him. Throughout this novel, we are constantly reminded that Jim is \"one of us\" -- that what Lord Jim does is probably what most of us would do under the same circumstances, and until we are confronted with a similar situation, we do not know whether or not we also would \"Jump.\" As the critic Albert Guerard states, \"The universality of Lord Jim is even more obvious, since nearly everyone has jumped off some Patna and most of us have been compelled to live on, desperately or quietly engaged in reconciling what we are with what we would like to be.\" The first four chapters of the novel offer a view of Jim from the omniscient author's  point-of-view. The rest of the novel presents views of Jim from Marlow's point-of-view, as well as additional points-of-view from Jim's father's letter, from documents, and from Gentleman Brown's account of Jim. Significantly, also, these first four chapters show us Jim's early life and the influence of \"light holiday reading\" on him, his heroic dreams, a key incident in his sea training, his accident, the voyage of the Patna up until the moment when the ship strikes a submerged wreck, and a portion of the courtroom scene where the accused is being questioned. In Chapter 1, we are given a physical description of Jim; he is an ideal specimen of humanity -- tall, handsome, powerfully built, clean cut, and apparently popular. Then Conrad offers us the first incongruity -- Jim, as a water-clerk for a ship-chandler, is outstanding in this position  until unexpectedly \"he would throw up the job and depart.\" Likewise, if anyone found out his last name, he would leave immediately. Already, then, Conrad lets us know that there is \"something unknown\" about Jim's past which caused him to act mysteriously and erratically. Later, Jim will be seen, by Stein and others, as a romantic, and Conrad lets us know that Jim's love of the sea was a result of \"light holiday reading.\" Even in training, Jim tried to see \"himself saving people from sinking ships. . . . in a hurricane swimming through a surf,\" and performing all sorts of heroic and romantic deeds, living more in the world of fantasy than in reality. Reality intruded into Jim's dreams, however, when he failed his first test of courage. All the other cadets rushed to the aid of a sinking ship, but Jim remained aboard ship -- almost paralyzed. Too late, he tried to join the others. After the others returned, Jim fantasized that next time he would perform greater feats of heroism. Thus, Jim failed his first test and resorted again to dreaming about acts of courage."}
He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he
advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head
forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging
bull. His voice was deep, loud, and his manner displayed a kind of
dogged self-assertion which had nothing aggressive in it. It seemed
a necessity, and it was directed apparently as much at himself as at
anybody else. He was spotlessly neat, apparelled in immaculate white
from shoes to hat, and in the various Eastern ports where he got his
living as ship-chandler's water-clerk he was very popular.

A water-clerk need not pass an examination in anything under the sun,
but he must have Ability in the abstract and demonstrate it practically.
His work consists in racing under sail, steam, or oars against other
water-clerks for any ship about to anchor, greeting her captain
cheerily, forcing upon him a card--the business card of the
ship-chandler--and on his first visit on shore piloting him firmly but
without ostentation to a vast, cavern-like shop which is full of things
that are eaten and drunk on board ship; where you can get everything
to make her seaworthy and beautiful, from a set of chain-hooks for her
cable to a book of gold-leaf for the carvings of her stern; and where
her commander is received like a brother by a ship-chandler he has never
seen before. There is a cool parlour, easy-chairs, bottles, cigars,
writing implements, a copy of harbour regulations, and a warmth of
welcome that melts the salt of a three months' passage out of a seaman's
heart. The connection thus begun is kept up, as long as the ship remains
in harbour, by the daily visits of the water-clerk. To the captain he
is faithful like a friend and attentive like a son, with the patience
of Job, the unselfish devotion of a woman, and the jollity of a boon
companion. Later on the bill is sent in. It is a beautiful and humane
occupation. Therefore good water-clerks are scarce. When a water-clerk
who possesses Ability in the abstract has also the advantage of having
been brought up to the sea, he is worth to his employer a lot of money
and some humouring. Jim had always good wages and as much humouring
as would have bought the fidelity of a fiend. Nevertheless, with black
ingratitude he would throw up the job suddenly and depart. To his
employers the reasons he gave were obviously inadequate. They said
'Confounded fool!' as soon as his back was turned. This was their
criticism on his exquisite sensibility.

To the white men in the waterside business and to the captains of ships
he was just Jim--nothing more. He had, of course, another name, but he
was anxious that it should not be pronounced. His incognito, which had
as many holes as a sieve, was not meant to hide a personality but a
fact. When the fact broke through the incognito he would leave
suddenly the seaport where he happened to be at the time and go to
another--generally farther east. He kept to seaports because he was a
seaman in exile from the sea, and had Ability in the abstract, which is
good for no other work but that of a water-clerk. He retreated in good
order towards the rising sun, and the fact followed him casually but
inevitably. Thus in the course of years he was known successively in
Bombay, in Calcutta, in Rangoon, in Penang, in Batavia--and in each of
these halting-places was just Jim the water-clerk. Afterwards, when his
keen perception of the Intolerable drove him away for good from seaports
and white men, even into the virgin forest, the Malays of the jungle
village, where he had elected to conceal his deplorable faculty, added a
word to the monosyllable of his incognito. They called him Tuan Jim: as
one might say--Lord Jim.

Originally he came from a parsonage. Many commanders of fine
merchant-ships come from these abodes of piety and peace. Jim's father
possessed such certain knowledge of the Unknowable as made for the
righteousness of people in cottages without disturbing the ease of mind
of those whom an unerring Providence enables to live in mansions. The
little church on a hill had the mossy greyness of a rock seen through a
ragged screen of leaves. It had stood there for centuries, but the trees
around probably remembered the laying of the first stone. Below, the
red front of the rectory gleamed with a warm tint in the midst of
grass-plots, flower-beds, and fir-trees, with an orchard at the back,
a paved stable-yard to the left, and the sloping glass of greenhouses
tacked along a wall of bricks. The living had belonged to the family for
generations; but Jim was one of five sons, and when after a course of
light holiday literature his vocation for the sea had declared itself,
he was sent at once to a 'training-ship for officers of the mercantile
marine.'

He learned there a little trigonometry and how to cross top-gallant
yards. He was generally liked. He had the third place in navigation
and pulled stroke in the first cutter. Having a steady head with an
excellent physique, he was very smart aloft. His station was in the
fore-top, and often from there he looked down, with the contempt of a
man destined to shine in the midst of dangers, at the peaceful multitude
of roofs cut in two by the brown tide of the stream, while scattered
on the outskirts of the surrounding plain the factory chimneys rose
perpendicular against a grimy sky, each slender like a pencil, and
belching out smoke like a volcano. He could see the big ships departing,
the broad-beamed ferries constantly on the move, the little boats
floating far below his feet, with the hazy splendour of the sea in the
distance, and the hope of a stirring life in the world of adventure.

On the lower deck in the babel of two hundred voices he would forget
himself, and beforehand live in his mind the sea-life of light
literature. He saw himself saving people from sinking ships, cutting
away masts in a hurricane, swimming through a surf with a line; or as a
lonely castaway, barefooted and half naked, walking on uncovered reefs
in search of shellfish to stave off starvation. He confronted savages on
tropical shores, quelled mutinies on the high seas, and in a small boat
upon the ocean kept up the hearts of despairing men--always an example
of devotion to duty, and as unflinching as a hero in a book.

'Something's up. Come along.'

He leaped to his feet. The boys were streaming up the ladders. Above
could be heard a great scurrying about and shouting, and when he got
through the hatchway he stood still--as if confounded.

It was the dusk of a winter's day. The gale had freshened since noon,
stopping the traffic on the river, and now blew with the strength of a
hurricane in fitful bursts that boomed like salvoes of great guns firing
over the ocean. The rain slanted in sheets that flicked and subsided,
and between whiles Jim had threatening glimpses of the tumbling tide,
the small craft jumbled and tossing along the shore, the motionless
buildings in the driving mist, the broad ferry-boats pitching
ponderously at anchor, the vast landing-stages heaving up and down and
smothered in sprays. The next gust seemed to blow all this away. The
air was full of flying water. There was a fierce purpose in the gale, a
furious earnestness in the screech of the wind, in the brutal tumult of
earth and sky, that seemed directed at him, and made him hold his breath
in awe. He stood still. It seemed to him he was whirled around.

He was jostled. 'Man the cutter!' Boys rushed past him. A coaster
running in for shelter had crashed through a schooner at anchor, and one
of the ship's instructors had seen the accident. A mob of boys clambered
on the rails, clustered round the davits. 'Collision. Just ahead of us.
Mr. Symons saw it.' A push made him stagger against the mizzen-mast, and
he caught hold of a rope. The old training-ship chained to her moorings
quivered all over, bowing gently head to wind, and with her scanty
rigging humming in a deep bass the breathless song of her youth at sea.
'Lower away!' He saw the boat, manned, drop swiftly below the rail,
and rushed after her. He heard a splash. 'Let go; clear the falls!' He
leaned over. The river alongside seethed in frothy streaks. The cutter
could be seen in the falling darkness under the spell of tide and wind,
that for a moment held her bound, and tossing abreast of the ship.
A yelling voice in her reached him faintly: 'Keep stroke, you young
whelps, if you want to save anybody! Keep stroke!' And suddenly she
lifted high her bow, and, leaping with raised oars over a wave, broke
the spell cast upon her by the wind and tide.

Jim felt his shoulder gripped firmly. 'Too late, youngster.' The captain
of the ship laid a restraining hand on that boy, who seemed on the
point of leaping overboard, and Jim looked up with the pain of conscious
defeat in his eyes. The captain smiled sympathetically. 'Better luck
next time. This will teach you to be smart.'

A shrill cheer greeted the cutter. She came dancing back half full of
water, and with two exhausted men washing about on her bottom boards.
The tumult and the menace of wind and sea now appeared very contemptible
to Jim, increasing the regret of his awe at their inefficient menace.
Now he knew what to think of it. It seemed to him he cared nothing for
the gale. He could affront greater perils. He would do so--better than
anybody. Not a particle of fear was left. Nevertheless he brooded apart
that evening while the bowman of the cutter--a boy with a face like
a girl's and big grey eyes--was the hero of the lower deck. Eager
questioners crowded round him. He narrated: 'I just saw his head
bobbing, and I dashed my boat-hook in the water. It caught in his
breeches and I nearly went overboard, as I thought I would, only old
Symons let go the tiller and grabbed my legs--the boat nearly swamped.
Old Symons is a fine old chap. I don't mind a bit him being grumpy with
us. He swore at me all the time he held my leg, but that was only his
way of telling me to stick to the boat-hook. Old Symons is awfully
excitable--isn't he? No--not the little fair chap--the other, the big
one with a beard. When we pulled him in he groaned, "Oh, my leg! oh,
my leg!" and turned up his eyes. Fancy such a big chap fainting like
a girl. Would any of you fellows faint for a jab with a boat-hook?--I
wouldn't. It went into his leg so far.' He showed the boat-hook, which
he had carried below for the purpose, and produced a sensation. 'No,
silly! It was not his flesh that held him--his breeches did. Lots of
blood, of course.'

Jim thought it a pitiful display of vanity. The gale had ministered to
a heroism as spurious as its own pretence of terror. He felt angry with
the brutal tumult of earth and sky for taking him unawares and checking
unfairly a generous readiness for narrow escapes. Otherwise he was
rather glad he had not gone into the cutter, since a lower achievement
had served the turn. He had enlarged his knowledge more than those who
had done the work. When all men flinched, then--he felt sure--he alone
would know how to deal with the spurious menace of wind and seas. He
knew what to think of it. Seen dispassionately, it seemed contemptible.
He could detect no trace of emotion in himself, and the final effect of
a staggering event was that, unnoticed and apart from the noisy crowd of
boys, he exulted with fresh certitude in his avidity for adventure, and
in a sense of many-sided courage.

Chapter 1
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 to greet a newly docked sea captain and steer him to a vast supply store filled with all the items that a ship would need for its next voyage. While the ship remained docked, Jim had to court, cajole, and serve the captain as a loyal friend and as a patient, good-natured companion so that the captain would spend a great deal of money at the ship-chandler's. Jim always drew good wages, but he never stayed at one port for very long; he had "something of the unknown" about him, something that set him apart, something which Conrad calls "an exquisite sensibility." We are also told that for many years, Jim went by only one name -- Jim -- because he wanted to hide a "fact" about himself and when that "fact" surfaced in seaport gossip, Jim would leave town very suddenly, always traveling "farther east," toward the rising sun. It was while Jim was working among the Malays that he acquired the other half of the name by which men would know him. The natives dubbed him "Tuan Jim," or Lord Jim. Seemingly, Jim became interested in sailing and adventure as a young boy, because one day, after reading some "light holiday literature," presumably about sailing, he immediately decided that the sea would be his vocation. Not long afterward, he was sent to a "training ship for officers." He was generally well-liked at the school; he was cool-headed, clever, and had an enviable physique. His job stationed him at the ship's fore-top, from which he could scan the surroundings and look down at the other boys, as if from a very privileged distance. From his high post, Jim daydreamed that he was being readied for a heroic "role"; he romantically envisioned himself rescuing people from hurricanes and then surviving half-naked on a deserted island. He saw himself quelling tempers and putting down inflamed mutinies. In his dreams, he was always the essence of fidelity and duty. One winter's day at dusk, Jim heard a call to help a coaster which had crashed into a schooner. He stopped and held his breath in awe while the other boys clamored over the rails and were lowered away. Jim was half-ready to leap overboard when the captain unexpectedly gripped his shoulder. "Too late, youngster," he said. "Better luck next time." Later the other boys, particularly one boy with "a face like a girl's," loudly celebrated their successful rescue of the victims of the collision. The pretty young boy -- and not Jim -- was the hero of the evening. Jim pondered over his failure to act, his hesitating too long. Why hadn't he acted? Next time, he vowed to himself, he would act faster and better than anyone, but this time, why should he have risked life and limb for such a trivial "rescue effort"? He breathed deeply, eager for a new challenge that would be worthy of him.
Our first view of Lord Jim, the protagonist of the novel, is that of a dedicated and moral person; consequently, we are immediately aware that this novel will deal with moral and ethical issues. Many critics refer to this novel as an "impressionistic" novel because we are given the impression of a man who, at three critical times in his life, is faced with a difficult choice, and, each time, he chooses incorrectly. First, he must choose whether, as a cadet, he will join in rescuing a sinking ship; he doesn't. Second, he must choose whether or not to jump from the sinking Patna, leaving 800 pilgrims to drown; he jumps. Third, he must choose whether or not to have Gentleman Brown killed; he chooses not to. In each case, because of his romantic illusions, Lord Jim makes the wrong decision and we see how these wrong decisions affect him. Throughout this novel, we are constantly reminded that Jim is "one of us" -- that what Lord Jim does is probably what most of us would do under the same circumstances, and until we are confronted with a similar situation, we do not know whether or not we also would "Jump." As the critic Albert Guerard states, "The universality of Lord Jim is even more obvious, since nearly everyone has jumped off some Patna and most of us have been compelled to live on, desperately or quietly engaged in reconciling what we are with what we would like to be." The first four chapters of the novel offer a view of Jim from the omniscient author's  point-of-view. The rest of the novel presents views of Jim from Marlow's point-of-view, as well as additional points-of-view from Jim's father's letter, from documents, and from Gentleman Brown's account of Jim. Significantly, also, these first four chapters show us Jim's early life and the influence of "light holiday reading" on him, his heroic dreams, a key incident in his sea training, his accident, the voyage of the Patna up until the moment when the ship strikes a submerged wreck, and a portion of the courtroom scene where the accused is being questioned. In Chapter 1, we are given a physical description of Jim; he is an ideal specimen of humanity -- tall, handsome, powerfully built, clean cut, and apparently popular. Then Conrad offers us the first incongruity -- Jim, as a water-clerk for a ship-chandler, is outstanding in this position  until unexpectedly "he would throw up the job and depart." Likewise, if anyone found out his last name, he would leave immediately. Already, then, Conrad lets us know that there is "something unknown" about Jim's past which caused him to act mysteriously and erratically. Later, Jim will be seen, by Stein and others, as a romantic, and Conrad lets us know that Jim's love of the sea was a result of "light holiday reading." Even in training, Jim tried to see "himself saving people from sinking ships. . . . in a hurricane swimming through a surf," and performing all sorts of heroic and romantic deeds, living more in the world of fantasy than in reality. Reality intruded into Jim's dreams, however, when he failed his first test of courage. All the other cadets rushed to the aid of a sinking ship, but Jim remained aboard ship -- almost paralyzed. Too late, he tried to join the others. After the others returned, Jim fantasized that next time he would perform greater feats of heroism. Thus, Jim failed his first test and resorted again to dreaming about acts of courage.