Lord Jim
Lord Jim,a novel by J. Conrad , published 1900 .
Jim is chief mate on board the Patna, an ill-manned ship carrying a party of pilgrims in Eastern waters. He is young, idealistic, and a dreamer of heroic deeds. When the Patna threatens to sink and the cowardly officers decide to save their own skins and escape in the few lifeboats, Jim despises them, but at the last moment, dazed by the horror and confusion of the moment, he joins them. He acts without conscious decision and his last-minute jump into the boat is almost involuntary. The Patna does not sink and the pilgrims are rescued. What happens to Jim thereafter is related by an observer, Marlow. Jim, alone among the crew, remains to face the court of enquiry, deeply disturbed at his defection from a code of conduct dear to him. Condemned by the court and stripped of his papers, he tries to disappear, moving from place to place whenever his past threatens to...
[The entire page is 326 words long]
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