The Double Status Of Lord Jim

Joseph Conrad, in Lord Jim, creates Jim as a pious Christian hero who, in spite of many frustrations, continues to seek for self-integrity advocated by Christian religion until he finally reaches his aim through self-sacrifice and wins the name of "Lord Jim" in Patusan. Conrad tries his hard to persuade people, through Jim's experiences, to attach importance to social morality, especially Christian morality. This is positive in the contemporary western imperialist world which is burnt with pervasive enthusiasm of crazy expansion, invasion and plunder abroad. But the hero Jim is also described by Conrad as an agent of imperial expansion. He works for colonialist trading company and slaves the native people in many dishonorable ways. Conrad presents us an imperialist agent as a positive character, which reflects that he has been deeply affected by the imperialist idea of expansion abroad although he has been conscious of its cruelty and unreasonability. Because what Christian morality advocates is basically opposite to imperialist expansion, the two sides of Jim as a pious Christian hero and an imperialist agent are of irreconcilable discrepancy in nature, which leads to Jim's death with their escalating conflicts.This thesis intends to probe its theme through three chapters. In Section â… , I intend to present how Conrad embodies the Christian qualities in Jim and verify the author's intention to advocate the Christian morality, which is positive in encouraging people to pursue moral perfection and constant self-integrity. However, such a God-like hero is not existent. It is the product of Conrad's perfectionism and idealism.Sectionâ…¡ reveals Jim's another side as an agent of imperial expansion. He is sent to Patusan as an agent of Stein, a typical imperialist, uses weaponry and violence to conquer the natives and conspires with native leaders to govern the local place. These are all the obvious characteristics of his status as an agent of imperialist agent. And Section â…¢ makes a comprehensive analysis and makes it out that Jim's pursuing moral perfection is based on racial discrimination and inequality as well as the imperialist background, and runs counter to the social and historical environment of his age. Therefore, Jim's final failure and death is inevitable and the product of escalating discrepancy between Jim's double status. Conrad did not see through it and attempted to create an image of moral perfection by Jim's death, which is his limitation.