feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/novelguide/Lord Jim/section_1_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapters 1-2
feat_summary_id: chapters 1-2
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapters 1-2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210215030710/https://www.novelguide.com/lord-jim/summaries/chapter1-2", "summary": "Chapters One and Two . The epigraph by Novalis introduces the reader to one of the main themes of trust in Lord Jim: 'It is certain my conviction gains infinitely, the moment another soul will believe in it.' . . The main part of the novel begins with a description of a man who is an inch or two under six feet, is 'powerfully built' and has a 'fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull'. This man is dressed spotlessly in white from shoes to hat and is very popular in the Eastern ports he works in as a ship-chandler's water clerk. . . This job entails greeting newly arrived ships before the clerks of the other companies, and piloting the captain to the appropriate ship chandler. The water-clerk maintains the connection with daily visits as long as the ship is in harbor. Jim  is a good employee, but is prone to suddenly resign from jobs and leave the area. He is known as just Jim; he has another name, of course, 'but he was anxious that it should not be pronounced'. When his other name comes out, he leaves for another seaport. He is a seaman in exile and so keeps to the ports as he has 'ability in the abstract', 'which is good for no other work but that of a water-clerk'. He moves from port to port, and then away from white men when he goes to live with 'the Malays of the jungle village'. Here, he is called 'Tuan Jim' . . . Jim originally came from a parsonage and this type of living had been in his family for generations. He is one of five sons, though, and 'when after a course of light holiday literature his vocation for the sea had declared itself', he is sent to a training ship 'for officers of the mercantile marine'. . . At this time, he sees the potential for adventure in this life and, in 'the babel of two hundred voices' on the lower deck, he lives in his mind 'the sea life of light literature' and imagines himself becoming a hero. There is an accident after a gale and Jim feels afterwards that he 'could affront greater perils', but is a little envious of another boy's perceived heroism. With dispassion, Jim later 'exulted with fresh certitude in his avidity for adventure, and in a sense of many-sided courage'. . . In Chapter Two, the readers are told that Jim went to sea after two years of training, 'and after entering the regions so well known to his imagination, found them strangely barren of adventure'. At the beginning of that week, Jim is injured by a falling spar. His lameness persists and he has to go to hospital at an 'Eastern port'. His recovery is slow and is left behind by his ship. He visits the local town and meets men of his calling who now prefer to work in the East: 'They loved short passages, good deckchairs, large native crews, and the distinction of being white.' Initially, Jim sees these men as insubstantial as shadows, but gradually becomes fascinated by them. He takes a berth as a chief mate on the steamer the Patna. This is commanded by a New South Wales German who 'brutalised all those he was not afraid of'. 800 pilgrims stream on board the ship and the German skipper refers to them as 'cattle'. The Patna heads for the Red Sea and the five white crew members live amidships 'isolated from the human cargo'. .", "analysis": "Chapters One and Two . In these introductory chapters, Jim is portrayed as one influenced by the adventure stories he has read as a child. This influence extends into adulthood as he continues to imagine himself as a hero. This theme of heroism, or rather the desire to be a hero, runs throughout the novel and may be regarded as Jim's undoing or, conversely, as an admirable heroic quality. . Lord Jim is constructed by a fairly elaborate technique of shifting to various times in the past and this is notable in the first few pages of Chapter One. The reader is first introduced to Jim when he works as a water clerk and then sees him briefly as 'Tuan Jim' in a Malay jungle village. The narrative then shifts back further to explain his earlier life and the influence of adventure stories on his decision to become a seaman. This gives the novel a level of complexity as Conrad avoids using a simple linear storyline."}
text: 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.
  After two years of training he went to sea, and entering the regions so
  well known to his imagination, found them strangely barren of adventure.
  He made many voyages. He knew the magic monotony of existence between
  sky and water: he had to bear the criticism of men, the exactions of the
  sea, and the prosaic severity of the daily task that gives bread--but
  whose only reward is in the perfect love of the work. This reward eluded
  him. Yet he could not go back, because there is nothing more enticing,
  disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea. Besides, his
  prospects were good. He was gentlemanly, steady, tractable, with a
  thorough knowledge of his duties; and in time, when yet very young, he
  became chief mate of a fine ship, without ever having been tested by
  those events of the sea that show in the light of day the inner worth of
  a man, the edge of his temper, and the fibre of his stuff; that reveal
  the quality of his resistance and the secret truth of his pretences, not
  only to others but also to himself.
  
  Only once in all that time he had again a glimpse of the earnestness in
  the anger of the sea. That truth is not so often made apparent as people
  might think. There are many shades in the danger of adventures and
  gales, and it is only now and then that there appears on the face of
  facts a sinister violence of intention--that indefinable something which
  forces it upon the mind and the heart of a man, that this complication
  of accidents or these elemental furies are coming at him with a purpose
  of malice, with a strength beyond control, with an unbridled cruelty
  that means to tear out of him his hope and his fear, the pain of his
  fatigue and his longing for rest: which means to smash, to destroy, to
  annihilate all he has seen, known, loved, enjoyed, or hated; all that is
  priceless and necessary--the sunshine, the memories, the future; which
  means to sweep the whole precious world utterly away from his sight by
  the simple and appalling act of taking his life.
  
  Jim, disabled by a falling spar at the beginning of a week of which his
  Scottish captain used to say afterwards, 'Man! it's a pairfect meeracle
  to me how she lived through it!' spent many days stretched on his back,
  dazed, battered, hopeless, and tormented as if at the bottom of an
  abyss of unrest. He did not care what the end would be, and in his lucid
  moments overvalued his indifference. The danger, when not seen, has
  the imperfect vagueness of human thought. The fear grows shadowy; and
  Imagination, the enemy of men, the father of all terrors, unstimulated,
  sinks to rest in the dullness of exhausted emotion. Jim saw nothing
  but the disorder of his tossed cabin. He lay there battened down in the
  midst of a small devastation, and felt secretly glad he had not to go on
  deck. But now and again an uncontrollable rush of anguish would grip
  him bodily, make him gasp and writhe under the blankets, and then the
  unintelligent brutality of an existence liable to the agony of such
  sensations filled him with a despairing desire to escape at any cost.
  Then fine weather returned, and he thought no more about It.
  
  His lameness, however, persisted, and when the ship arrived at an
  Eastern port he had to go to the hospital. His recovery was slow, and he
  was left behind.
  
  There were only two other patients in the white men's ward: the purser
  of a gunboat, who had broken his leg falling down a hatchway; and a kind
  of railway contractor from a neighbouring province, afflicted by
  some mysterious tropical disease, who held the doctor for an ass, and
  indulged in secret debaucheries of patent medicine which his Tamil
  servant used to smuggle in with unwearied devotion. They told each other
  the story of their lives, played cards a little, or, yawning and in
  pyjamas, lounged through the day in easy-chairs without saying a word.
  The hospital stood on a hill, and a gentle breeze entering through the
  windows, always flung wide open, brought into the bare room the softness
  of the sky, the languor of the earth, the bewitching breath of the
  Eastern waters. There were perfumes in it, suggestions of infinite
  repose, the gift of endless dreams. Jim looked every day over the
  thickets of gardens, beyond the roofs of the town, over the fronds of
  palms growing on the shore, at that roadstead which is a thoroughfare
  to the East,--at the roadstead dotted by garlanded islets, lighted by
  festal sunshine, its ships like toys, its brilliant activity resembling
  a holiday pageant, with the eternal serenity of the Eastern sky overhead
  and the smiling peace of the Eastern seas possessing the space as far as
  the horizon.
  
  Directly he could walk without a stick, he descended into the town to
  look for some opportunity to get home. Nothing offered just then, and,
  while waiting, he associated naturally with the men of his calling in
  the port. These were of two kinds. Some, very few and seen there but
  seldom, led mysterious lives, had preserved an undefaced energy with the
  temper of buccaneers and the eyes of dreamers. They appeared to live
  in a crazy maze of plans, hopes, dangers, enterprises, ahead of
  civilisation, in the dark places of the sea; and their death was the
  only event of their fantastic existence that seemed to have a reasonable
  certitude of achievement. The majority were men who, like himself,
  thrown there by some accident, had remained as officers of country
  ships. They had now a horror of the home service, with its harder
  conditions, severer view of duty, and the hazard of stormy oceans. They
  were attuned to the eternal peace of Eastern sky and sea. They
  loved short passages, good deck-chairs, large native crews, and the
  distinction of being white. They shuddered at the thought of hard work,
  and led precariously easy lives, always on the verge of dismissal,
  always on the verge of engagement, serving Chinamen, Arabs,
  half-castes--would have served the devil himself had he made it easy
  enough. They talked everlastingly of turns of luck: how So-and-so got
  charge of a boat on the coast of China--a soft thing; how this one had
  an easy billet in Japan somewhere, and that one was doing well in the
  Siamese navy; and in all they said--in their actions, in their looks, in
  their persons--could be detected the soft spot, the place of decay, the
  determination to lounge safely through existence.
  
  To Jim that gossiping crowd, viewed as seamen, seemed at first more
  unsubstantial than so many shadows. But at length he found a fascination
  in the sight of those men, in their appearance of doing so well on
  such a small allowance of danger and toil. In time, beside the original
  disdain there grew up slowly another sentiment; and suddenly, giving up
  the idea of going home, he took a berth as chief mate of the Patna.
  
  The Patna was a local steamer as old as the hills, lean like a
  greyhound, and eaten up with rust worse than a condemned water-tank. She
  was owned by a Chinaman, chartered by an Arab, and commanded by a sort
  of renegade New South Wales German, very anxious to curse publicly
  his native country, but who, apparently on the strength of Bismarck's
  victorious policy, brutalised all those he was not afraid of, and wore a
  'blood-and-iron' air,' combined with a purple nose and a red moustache.
  After she had been painted outside and whitewashed inside, eight hundred
  pilgrims (more or less) were driven on board of her as she lay with
  steam up alongside a wooden jetty.
  
  They streamed aboard over three gangways, they streamed in urged by
  faith and the hope of paradise, they streamed in with a continuous tramp
  and shuffle of bare feet, without a word, a murmur, or a look back; and
  when clear of confining rails spread on all sides over the deck, flowed
  forward and aft, overflowed down the yawning hatchways, filled the inner
  recesses of the ship--like water filling a cistern, like water flowing
  into crevices and crannies, like water rising silently even with the
  rim. Eight hundred men and women with faith and hopes, with affections
  and memories, they had collected there, coming from north and south
  and from the outskirts of the East, after treading the jungle paths,
  descending the rivers, coasting in praus along the shallows, crossing in
  small canoes from island to island, passing through suffering, meeting
  strange sights, beset by strange fears, upheld by one desire. They
  came from solitary huts in the wilderness, from populous campongs, from
  villages by the sea. At the call of an idea they had left their forests,
  their clearings, the protection of their rulers, their prosperity,
  their poverty, the surroundings of their youth and the graves of their
  fathers. They came covered with dust, with sweat, with grime, with
  rags--the strong men at the head of family parties, the lean old men
  pressing forward without hope of return; young boys with fearless eyes
  glancing curiously, shy little girls with tumbled long hair; the timid
  women muffled up and clasping to their breasts, wrapped in loose ends of
  soiled head-cloths, their sleeping babies, the unconscious pilgrims of
  an exacting belief.
  
  'Look at dese cattle,' said the German skipper to his new chief mate.
  
  An Arab, the leader of that pious voyage, came last. He walked slowly
  aboard, handsome and grave in his white gown and large turban. A string
  of servants followed, loaded with his luggage; the Patna cast off and
  backed away from the wharf.
  
  She was headed between two small islets, crossed obliquely the
  anchoring-ground of sailing-ships, swung through half a circle in the
  shadow of a hill, then ranged close to a ledge of foaming reefs. The
  Arab, standing up aft, recited aloud the prayer of travellers by sea.
  He invoked the favour of the Most High upon that journey, implored His
  blessing on men's toil and on the secret purposes of their hearts; the
  steamer pounded in the dusk the calm water of the Strait; and far astern
  of the pilgrim ship a screw-pile lighthouse, planted by unbelievers on
  a treacherous shoal, seemed to wink at her its eye of flame, as if in
  derision of her errand of faith.
  
  She cleared the Strait, crossed the bay, continued on her way through
  the 'One-degree' passage. She held on straight for the Red Sea under a
  serene sky, under a sky scorching and unclouded, enveloped in a fulgor
  of sunshine that killed all thought, oppressed the heart, withered all
  impulses of strength and energy. And under the sinister splendour of
  that sky the sea, blue and profound, remained still, without a stir,
  without a ripple, without a wrinkle--viscous, stagnant, dead. The
  Patna, with a slight hiss, passed over that plain, luminous and smooth,
  unrolled a black ribbon of smoke across the sky, left behind her on the
  water a white ribbon of foam that vanished at once, like the phantom of
  a track drawn upon a lifeless sea by the phantom of a steamer.
  
  Every morning the sun, as if keeping pace in his revolutions with the
  progress of the pilgrimage, emerged with a silent burst of light exactly
  at the same distance astern of the ship, caught up with her at noon,
  pouring the concentrated fire of his rays on the pious purposes of the
  men, glided past on his descent, and sank mysteriously into the sea
  evening after evening, preserving the same distance ahead of her
  advancing bows. The five whites on board lived amidships, isolated from
  the human cargo. The awnings covered the deck with a white roof from
  stem to stern, and a faint hum, a low murmur of sad voices, alone
  revealed the presence of a crowd of people upon the great blaze of the
  ocean. Such were the days, still, hot, heavy, disappearing one by one
  into the past, as if falling into an abyss for ever open in the wake
  of the ship; and the ship, lonely under a wisp of smoke, held on her
  steadfast way black and smouldering in a luminous immensity, as if
  scorched by a flame flicked at her from a heaven without pity.
  
  The nights descended on her like a benediction.
feat_summary_name: Chapters 1-2
target: Chapters One and Two . The epigraph by Novalis introduces the reader to one of the main themes of trust in Lord Jim: 'It is certain my conviction gains infinitely, the moment another soul will believe in it.' . . The main part of the novel begins with a description of a man who is an inch or two under six feet, is 'powerfully built' and has a 'fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull'. This man is dressed spotlessly in white from shoes to hat and is very popular in the Eastern ports he works in as a ship-chandler's water clerk. . . This job entails greeting newly arrived ships before the clerks of the other companies, and piloting the captain to the appropriate ship chandler. The water-clerk maintains the connection with daily visits as long as the ship is in harbor. Jim  is a good employee, but is prone to suddenly resign from jobs and leave the area. He is known as just Jim; he has another name, of course, 'but he was anxious that it should not be pronounced'. When his other name comes out, he leaves for another seaport. He is a seaman in exile and so keeps to the ports as he has 'ability in the abstract', 'which is good for no other work but that of a water-clerk'. He moves from port to port, and then away from white men when he goes to live with 'the Malays of the jungle village'. Here, he is called 'Tuan Jim' . . . Jim originally came from a parsonage and this type of living had been in his family for generations. He is one of five sons, though, and 'when after a course of light holiday literature his vocation for the sea had declared itself', he is sent to a training ship 'for officers of the mercantile marine'. . . At this time, he sees the potential for adventure in this life and, in 'the babel of two hundred voices' on the lower deck, he lives in his mind 'the sea life of light literature' and imagines himself becoming a hero. There is an accident after a gale and Jim feels afterwards that he 'could affront greater perils', but is a little envious of another boy's perceived heroism. With dispassion, Jim later 'exulted with fresh certitude in his avidity for adventure, and in a sense of many-sided courage'. . . In Chapter Two, the readers are told that Jim went to sea after two years of training, 'and after entering the regions so well known to his imagination, found them strangely barren of adventure'. At the beginning of that week, Jim is injured by a falling spar. His lameness persists and he has to go to hospital at an 'Eastern port'. His recovery is slow and is left behind by his ship. He visits the local town and meets men of his calling who now prefer to work in the East: 'They loved short passages, good deckchairs, large native crews, and the distinction of being white.' Initially, Jim sees these men as insubstantial as shadows, but gradually becomes fascinated by them. He takes a berth as a chief mate on the steamer the Patna. This is commanded by a New South Wales German who 'brutalised all those he was not afraid of'. 800 pilgrims stream on board the ship and the German skipper refers to them as 'cattle'. The Patna heads for the Red Sea and the five white crew members live amidships 'isolated from the human cargo'. .
feat_summary_analysis: Chapters One and Two . In these introductory chapters, Jim is portrayed as one influenced by the adventure stories he has read as a child. This influence extends into adulthood as he continues to imagine himself as a hero. This theme of heroism, or rather the desire to be a hero, runs throughout the novel and may be regarded as Jim's undoing or, conversely, as an admirable heroic quality. . Lord Jim is constructed by a fairly elaborate technique of shifting to various times in the past and this is notable in the first few pages of Chapter One. The reader is first introduced to Jim when he works as a water clerk and then sees him briefly as 'Tuan Jim' in a Malay jungle village. The narrative then shifts back further to explain his earlier life and the influence of adventure stories on his decision to become a seaman. This gives the novel a level of complexity as Conrad avoids using a simple linear storyline.