"Cliff Notes - Lord Jim" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

he will almost certainly die. Whatever Jim's faults, he rebuts
the charge of cowardice in the face of death.

Those faults may have to do with his egoism, a characteristic to
which Marlow refers again and again. Jim is ultimately obsessed
with himself, his image of himself and his own behavior. He
isn't very concerned with the rest of the world (which is not to
say he's selfish). His good deeds in Patusan satisfy a test
he's set for himself--fine as he is, he doesn't go there out of
charity. He takes great satisfaction in being loved and trusted
and revered, and in knowing that nobody in Patusan would call
him a coward. But in the end he places his own ideals, and his
own needs, far above Jewel's or the community's--whose interests
aren't served by his death. Jewel is left widowed and alone;
the community loses a leader who's brought peace and curbed the
tyranny of the Rajah. In fact, the only interest served is an
abstract one: Jim's egoism, his personal ideal of bravery, at
the cost of his own life.

^^^^^^^^^^
LORD JIM: MARLOW

Although Marlow, the ship's captain who tells most of Jim's
story, plays only a small part in the action of Lord Jim, he's
as important to the novel as the title character. Almost
everything that happens is filtered through Marlow's
consciousness via his narration. As a thinker, Jim is rather
dull. His ideas are simple and boy-scout naive. What gives the
novel its verve and its complexity is Marlow's wide-ranging
observation and analysis.

Marlow is a practiced observer--the very opposite of the
egoistical Jim. While Jim is obsessed with himself, it's other
people (particularly Jim) who fascinate Marlow. He complains
about the way men and women constantly seek him out to spill
their innermost thoughts, but you can see why they do: His
interest and compassion, his need to understand, make him a
natural confessor.

Conrad had already used Marlow as a narrator, in the short story
"Youth" (1898) and the short novel Heart of Darkness (1899).
But in those works Marlow was little more than a fictional
stand-in for the author; his attitudes, perceptions, judgments
were Conrad's. In fact, their only major difference was their
birthplaces--Britain for Marlow, Poland for Conrad. But in Lord
Jim the relationship has altered. Marlow is no longer simply a
stand-in, though his moral and ethical judgments still resemble
Conrad's. Now Marlow allows his affection for Jim to soften his
judgment. Deep down, he wants to find a way to excuse him.
Conrad, in contrast, presents the evidence with rigorous