feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Lord Jim/section_0_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapter 1
feat_summary_id: chapter 1
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim09.asp", "summary": "The novel opens with a detailed description of Jim. He is an inch or two short of six feet, is powerfully built, and has a slight stoop. He walks with his head forward and looks with a stare, almost like a charging bull. He is intense by nature, and his voice is deep and loud. He is very neat and clean and always dresses in absolute white from his shoes to his hat. In the beginning of the novel, he is a water-clerk. His job is to greet the captain of an incoming vessel and persuade him to come to a supply store that provides for a ship's needs. During the captain's stay, Jim is expected to entertain him and become his friend, so the captain will want to spend a lot of money in the store. Jim displays good manners and patience in carrying out his duties. As a result, he is very popular with the various captains. Jim, however, is a restless young man. He never stays in one port for very long. When people begin to know him too well or mention his past, he leaves very quickly. Jim is from a parsonage, one of five sons. At an early age, he decides he wants to make a living on the sea. He is sent to a ship for training, where he proves that he is calm and clever. On the boat, Jim feels himself to be an outstanding sailor and is confident about dealing with storms and winds in the high sea. He dreams of rescuing people from sinking ships and becoming a hero. One day while on board ship, a schooner collides with a coaster nearby. The other boys immediately jump overboard to help in the rescue effort. Jim, however, hesitates. When he finally gains enough courage to go and help, he is stopped by the captain who tells him he is too late. When the other boys return from their rescue efforts as heroes, Jim is forced to think about his hesitation, his failure. He promises himself that next time hewill act faster.", "analysis": "Notes The first chapter is an introduction to Jim, the protagonist of the novel. He is described in almost perfect terms. He is handsome, well built, clever, self-confident, neat, clean, and popular. He is always dressed in white, a symbol of cleanliness and purity. He is also a romantic thinker, whose love of the sea has come from reading tales of adventure. Conrad hints that his romanticism is a negative trait for him. As a young man, Jim imagines himself becoming a hero capable of managing the high seas and rescuing people from sinking ships. Ironically, while in training to become a sailor, there is a shipwreck nearby. Jim does not immediately jump overboard to help in the rescue effort like the other boys; he does not have the courage to act. When he finally decides to join them, it is too late. He is perplexed by his hesitation and tries to excuse it by saying that the next mishap will be worthy of his efforts and he will perform heroically. Unfortunately, such never happens in the course of the novel. Jim's first reaction to a tragic event foreshadows his future reactions. Until the very end of the novel, he never has the correct response; he never lives up to the noble image presented of him in this first chapter of the book and he miserably fails to act like a hero on most occasions. There is another incongruity about Jim presented in this chapter. As a water-clerk, he earns good wages and is well liked by the captains of the ships that he must entertain. In spite of his occupational success, he never stays in one place too long. If anyone finds out about his past or even calls him by his last name, he leaves town immediately. This lack of stability creates an aura of mystery about Jim; he seems to be hiding from something in his past. Conrad writes with vivid descriptions throughout the novel. As a lover of the sea, he brings the ocean to life. In this opening chapter, he descries the \"trembling tide\" and \"the driving mist. \" Through his imagery, he makes the reader see, hear, and feel the setting. He also alternates the use of light and darkness in the chapter."}
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.
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 1
target: The novel opens with a detailed description of Jim. He is an inch or two short of six feet, is powerfully built, and has a slight stoop. He walks with his head forward and looks with a stare, almost like a charging bull. He is intense by nature, and his voice is deep and loud. He is very neat and clean and always dresses in absolute white from his shoes to his hat. In the beginning of the novel, he is a water-clerk. His job is to greet the captain of an incoming vessel and persuade him to come to a supply store that provides for a ship's needs. During the captain's stay, Jim is expected to entertain him and become his friend, so the captain will want to spend a lot of money in the store. Jim displays good manners and patience in carrying out his duties. As a result, he is very popular with the various captains. Jim, however, is a restless young man. He never stays in one port for very long. When people begin to know him too well or mention his past, he leaves very quickly. Jim is from a parsonage, one of five sons. At an early age, he decides he wants to make a living on the sea. He is sent to a ship for training, where he proves that he is calm and clever. On the boat, Jim feels himself to be an outstanding sailor and is confident about dealing with storms and winds in the high sea. He dreams of rescuing people from sinking ships and becoming a hero. One day while on board ship, a schooner collides with a coaster nearby. The other boys immediately jump overboard to help in the rescue effort. Jim, however, hesitates. When he finally gains enough courage to go and help, he is stopped by the captain who tells him he is too late. When the other boys return from their rescue efforts as heroes, Jim is forced to think about his hesitation, his failure. He promises himself that next time hewill act faster.
feat_summary_analysis: Notes The first chapter is an introduction to Jim, the protagonist of the novel. He is described in almost perfect terms. He is handsome, well built, clever, self-confident, neat, clean, and popular. He is always dressed in white, a symbol of cleanliness and purity. He is also a romantic thinker, whose love of the sea has come from reading tales of adventure. Conrad hints that his romanticism is a negative trait for him. As a young man, Jim imagines himself becoming a hero capable of managing the high seas and rescuing people from sinking ships. Ironically, while in training to become a sailor, there is a shipwreck nearby. Jim does not immediately jump overboard to help in the rescue effort like the other boys; he does not have the courage to act. When he finally decides to join them, it is too late. He is perplexed by his hesitation and tries to excuse it by saying that the next mishap will be worthy of his efforts and he will perform heroically. Unfortunately, such never happens in the course of the novel. Jim's first reaction to a tragic event foreshadows his future reactions. Until the very end of the novel, he never has the correct response; he never lives up to the noble image presented of him in this first chapter of the book and he miserably fails to act like a hero on most occasions. There is another incongruity about Jim presented in this chapter. As a water-clerk, he earns good wages and is well liked by the captains of the ships that he must entertain. In spite of his occupational success, he never stays in one place too long. If anyone finds out about his past or even calls him by his last name, he leaves town immediately. This lack of stability creates an aura of mystery about Jim; he seems to be hiding from something in his past. Conrad writes with vivid descriptions throughout the novel. As a lover of the sea, he brings the ocean to life. In this opening chapter, he descries the "trembling tide" and "the driving mist. " Through his imagery, he makes the reader see, hear, and feel the setting. He also alternates the use of light and darkness in the chapter.