Lord Jim

Marlow gives some history of Patusan, a place where traders obtained pepper in the 17th century. Stein’s is the only firm with authorization from the Dutch authorities to trade in Patusan. Stein describes Patusan as controlled by antagonistic forces, including Rajah Allang, uncle of the Sultan, who governs the river. Marlow sees the employment as a refuge for Jim, despite the accompanying danger, while Stein appears to view it as payment of a debt to a Scottish person who has since passed, but who provided Stein with a similar opportunity at one point in his life. Jim, for his part, is eager to take on the assignment in Patusan.

Stein supplies Jim with a letter to deliver to Cornelius—the agent he is replacing—and a silver ring which is to be his introduction to one Doramin, leader of the Malay Bugis, who had been a comrade of Stein’s in Patusan at one time. Stein assures Jim that Doramin will help him. Jim shows elation at the prospect, and Marlow wonders at Jim’s joy in being appointed a trading clerk in a place with no trade. On the last day Marlow and Jim spend together before Jim takes up his post, Marlow offers a small trunk for Jim’s possessions to replace his own valise. Jim dumps out his possessions to make the switch, and Marlow notes among those possessions a complete volume of Shakespeare’s works, while Marlow offers him a revolver and cartridges. However, Marlow notices when Jim has gone that he has forgotten to take the cartridges and left them on a table. The captain of the ship delivering Jim to Patusan agrees to take him only as far as the river’s mouth because he has had his own bad experiences in Patusan. Marlow relates that he later learned that this captain was hung by the neck from a post for the greater part of a day and a night in front of the Rajah’s house. Marlow believes this may have been more of a prank than anything else, though, as no real harm came to the man.

Marlow describes seeing the coast of Patusan two years after Jim made his journey there. An elder of a fishing village at the mouth of the river that leads into the heart of Patusan comes on board with Marlow to act as a pilot for him, and he talks mostly about Jim, whom he calls Tuan Jim. Marlow believes himself to be the second white man this man has ever seen, with Jim being the first. Marlow recounts Jim’s own progress upriver two years earlier. In this story, those guiding Jim’s boat jump out and flee as they reach the land to which they have guided him. Jim is greeted by a large group of people emerging from a gate, while a boat full of armed men cuts off his retreat by water. He receives a message that the Rajah wants to see him.

Jim is a prisoner of the Rajah for three days. By the time Marlow meets the Rajah two years later, however, Jim has enough sway to influence the Rajah to call off raids on some poor villagers wishing to make trades at Doramin’s house. Jim then shows Marlow the place where he made his escape from the Rajah’s stockade. He made two long leaps, losing his shoes in the first and getting covered with mud in the second. He ran through a settlement and called for Doramin. Jim was able to present the ring from Stein and was safely in Doramin’s care at that point. Though Doramin is chief of a group of Bugis from Celebes and has some power, the group not only has to deal with potential violence from the Rajah, but also from an Arab raider, Sherif Ali.

Marlowe meets Doramin and describes him as a man of imposing physical presence but largely immobile without aid, who never raises his voice. His wife, by contrast, is light and delicate, and their son, Dain Waris, is also a distinguished presence. Jim describes Dain Waris as the best friend he ever had, and it is Dain Waris who first gets behind Jim’s plan to oust Sherif Ali and to destroy his camp by the use of Doramin’s rusty iron seven-pound ordinance. The guns first have to be taken up to the top of a hill over difficult terrain, with the work done at night so as to take Sherif Ali’s fortress by surprise the following morning. Jim oversees the work, scrambling up and down the hill, while Doramin sits solemnly near a fire half-way down the hillside.

Marlow reports that the movement of the guns up the hill prompts a legend that Jim has supernatural powers because the use of ropes and turning devices and manpower could not seem to fully explain the execution of the task. Leaving others to man the guns once they are in place, Jim joins Dain Waris with a storming party waiting in a ravine for the first sign of daylight. The guns smash the fort to the point of allowing the raiding party access, and the result is a complete rout that creates Lord Jim’s legend. His fame becomes the greatest of any person in that region for many miles.

The successful ouster of Sherif Ali, who flees after the defeat, leaves Jim in consultation with Dain Waris to appoint headmen and makes Jim a virtual ruler. Meanwhile the Rajah fears he too could be ousted and driven from Patusan, while Doramin fears that Jim will leave like the white men who came before him. Marlow then begins to narrate the story of Jim’s love for a young woman Jim calls Jewel, whose mother died during her unhappy marriage to Cornelius. The mother’s grave, while plain, is always cared for with fresh flowers. As Jim is known to frequently accompany the daughter on her walks, a legend arises that he keeps an enormous jewel on her person for safekeeping.

According to Marlow, the girl known as Jewel is a vigilant and protective companion of Jim, as is Jim’s servant Tamb’ Itam. Marlow notices that Cornelius, Jewel’s father, lingers enviously in the vicinity as Jim walks with Jewel.

Marlow then quotes Jim’s narrative describing the time, shortly after his arrival and long before the war with Sherif Ali, when he left Doramin’s place and took up residence with Cornelius in order to begin to look after Stein’s business. According to this narrative, Cornelius first approaches Jim as a possible source for money that he indicates Stein already owes him. Cornelius also indicates that his late wife is the source for many of his problems. Jim first meets Jewel during this time, as she is living unhappily in her father’s house. Jim tells Cornelius eventually that he is forbidden from mentioning his late wife because it makes Jewel cry.

According to Marlow’s narration, Jim continues to live with Cornelius to protect Jewel, whom Cornelius often yells at and calls a devil like her mother. She confides to Jim she might have killed Cornelius herself if she had not known that he too was intensely unhappy. When many rumors of death threats for Jim begin to circulate, Cornelius offers to protect him and get him downriver for $80-100. At one point Cornelius sneaks away in the night and returns with an explanation that he had met with a fish peddler, but Jim knows this could not have been the actual explanation for his absence that time of night.