feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Lord Jim/section_25_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapter 26
feat_summary_id: chapter 26
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 26", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim35.asp", "summary": "Doramin is an impressive character with proud, intent eyes. He is also a fat man who is unable to walk alone. Two men are required to assist him when he wants to raise or lower himself. His wife, on the other hand, is a thin, delicate woman who fusses over her husband. She serves as his adviser. Their only son, Dain Waris, is twenty-five, and Doramin wants to insure a safe place for him after his death. Dain Waris becomes Jim's best friend, and the two respect each other greatly. Doramin sought Jim's help in fighting Raja Allang and Sherif Ali. Jim accepted the challenge, and establishing peace on the island became his purpose for existence. He knew that he would have to do something dramatic in order to beat the enemy and suggested openly attacking Sherif Ali. Dain Waris was the first to accept Jim's plan; soon all of Doramin's people became his allies, offering assistance.", "analysis": "Notes Doramin and his family are developed in this chapter. Dain Waris, who later becomes a key figure in the novel, is introduced for the first time. Conrad is careful to explain that Dain Waris and Jim are best friends. In fact, Dain Waris is the first to side with Jim on his plan to attach Sherif Ali and he also saves Jim's life. This chapter gives hints of the impending tragedy that is to occur later in the novel. Conrad emphasizes Doramin's two pistols, which Stein had given him. These pistols will be used to kill Jim. Conrad also emphasizes the close relationship between Doramin and his son Dain Waris. It is because of his son that Doramin wants Jim to help in making Patusan a peaceful island. When Dain Waris is killed, Conrad has prepared the reader for the chief turning against Jim. In his description of Jim's swift rise to the top of the Malay society, Conrad shows his ethnocentrism. Jim's whiteness is often emphasized in his description. He is the great white hope of European fantasy. The people are chaotic and warring before he arrives and upon his arrival, they become peaceful and orderly. Since Britain was still heavily invested in imperialism at the time Conrad wrote, he made imperialism, with its basis in white supremacy, seem altruistic."}
text: 
  'Doramin was one of the most remarkable men of his race I had ever seen.
  His bulk for a Malay was immense, but he did not look merely fat; he
  looked imposing, monumental. This motionless body, clad in rich stuffs,
  coloured silks, gold embroideries; this huge head, enfolded in a
  red-and-gold headkerchief; the flat, big, round face, wrinkled,
  furrowed, with two semicircular heavy folds starting on each side of
  wide, fierce nostrils, and enclosing a thick-lipped mouth; the throat
  like a bull; the vast corrugated brow overhanging the staring proud
  eyes--made a whole that, once seen, can never be forgotten. His
  impassive repose (he seldom stirred a limb when once he sat down) was
  like a display of dignity. He was never known to raise his voice. It
  was a hoarse and powerful murmur, slightly veiled as if heard from a
  distance. When he walked, two short, sturdy young fellows, naked to the
  waist, in white sarongs and with black skull-caps on the backs of their
  heads, sustained his elbows; they would ease him down and stand behind
  his chair till he wanted to rise, when he would turn his head slowly,
  as if with difficulty, to the right and to the left, and then they would
  catch him under his armpits and help him up. For all that, there was
  nothing of a cripple about him: on the contrary, all his ponderous
  movements were like manifestations of a mighty deliberate force. It
  was generally believed he consulted his wife as to public affairs; but
  nobody, as far as I know, had ever heard them exchange a single word.
  When they sat in state by the wide opening it was in silence. They could
  see below them in the declining light the vast expanse of the forest
  country, a dark sleeping sea of sombre green undulating as far as the
  violet and purple range of mountains; the shining sinuosity of the river
  like an immense letter S of beaten silver; the brown ribbon of houses
  following the sweep of both banks, overtopped by the twin hills uprising
  above the nearer tree-tops. They were wonderfully contrasted: she,
  light, delicate, spare, quick, a little witch-like, with a touch of
  motherly fussiness in her repose; he, facing her, immense and heavy,
  like a figure of a man roughly fashioned of stone, with something
  magnanimous and ruthless in his immobility. The son of these old people
  was a most distinguished youth.
  
  'They had him late in life. Perhaps he was not really so young as he
  looked. Four- or five-and-twenty is not so young when a man is already
  father of a family at eighteen. When he entered the large room, lined
  and carpeted with fine mats, and with a high ceiling of white sheeting,
  where the couple sat in state surrounded by a most deferential retinue,
  he would make his way straight to Doramin, to kiss his hand--which the
  other abandoned to him, majestically--and then would step across to
  stand by his mother's chair. I suppose I may say they idolised him, but
  I never caught them giving him an overt glance. Those, it is true, were
  public functions. The room was generally thronged. The solemn formality
  of greetings and leave-takings, the profound respect expressed in
  gestures, on the faces, in the low whispers, is simply indescribable.
  "It's well worth seeing," Jim had assured me while we were crossing the
  river, on our way back. "They are like people in a book, aren't they?"
  he said triumphantly. "And Dain Waris--their son--is the best
  friend (barring you) I ever had. What Mr. Stein would call a good
  'war-comrade.' I was in luck. Jove! I was in luck when I tumbled amongst
  them at my last gasp." He meditated with bowed head, then rousing
  himself he added--'"Of course I didn't go to sleep over it, but . . ."
  He paused again. "It seemed to come to me," he murmured. "All at once I
  saw what I had to do . . ."
  
  'There was no doubt that it had come to him; and it had come through
  war, too, as is natural, since this power that came to him was the power
  to make peace. It is in this sense alone that might so often is right.
  You must not think he had seen his way at once. When he arrived the
  Bugis community was in a most critical position. "They were all afraid,"
  he said to me--"each man afraid for himself; while I could see as plain
  as possible that they must do something at once, if they did not want
  to go under one after another, what between the Rajah and that vagabond
  Sherif." But to see that was nothing. When he got his idea he had
  to drive it into reluctant minds, through the bulwarks of fear, of
  selfishness. He drove it in at last. And that was nothing. He had to
  devise the means. He devised them--an audacious plan; and his task
  was only half done. He had to inspire with his own confidence a lot
  of people who had hidden and absurd reasons to hang back; he had to
  conciliate imbecile jealousies, and argue away all sorts of senseless
  mistrusts. Without the weight of Doramin's authority, and his son's
  fiery enthusiasm, he would have failed. Dain Waris, the distinguished
  youth, was the first to believe in him; theirs was one of those strange,
  profound, rare friendships between brown and white, in which the very
  difference of race seems to draw two human beings closer by some mystic
  element of sympathy. Of Dain Waris, his own people said with pride that
  he knew how to fight like a white man. This was true; he had that
  sort of courage--the courage in the open, I may say--but he had also a
  European mind. You meet them sometimes like that, and are surprised to
  discover unexpectedly a familiar turn of thought, an unobscured vision,
  a tenacity of purpose, a touch of altruism. Of small stature, but
  admirably well proportioned, Dain Waris had a proud carriage, a
  polished, easy bearing, a temperament like a clear flame. His dusky
  face, with big black eyes, was in action expressive, and in repose
  thoughtful. He was of a silent disposition; a firm glance, an ironic
  smile, a courteous deliberation of manner seemed to hint at great
  reserves of intelligence and power. Such beings open to the Western eye,
  so often concerned with mere surfaces, the hidden possibilities of races
  and lands over which hangs the mystery of unrecorded ages. He not only
  trusted Jim, he understood him, I firmly believe. I speak of him because
  he had captivated me. His--if I may say so--his caustic placidity,
  and, at the same time, his intelligent sympathy with Jim's aspirations,
  appealed to me. I seemed to behold the very origin of friendship. If
  Jim took the lead, the other had captivated his leader. In fact, Jim
  the leader was a captive in every sense. The land, the people, the
  friendship, the love, were like the jealous guardians of his body.
  Every day added a link to the fetters of that strange freedom. I felt
  convinced of it, as from day to day I learned more of the story.
  
  'The story! Haven't I heard the story? I've heard it on the march, in
  camp (he made me scour the country after invisible game); I've listened
  to a good part of it on one of the twin summits, after climbing the last
  hundred feet or so on my hands and knees. Our escort (we had volunteer
  followers from village to village) had camped meantime on a bit of level
  ground half-way up the slope, and in the still breathless evening the
  smell of wood-smoke reached our nostrils from below with the penetrating
  delicacy of some choice scent. Voices also ascended, wonderful in their
  distinct and immaterial clearness. Jim sat on the trunk of a felled
  tree, and pulling out his pipe began to smoke. A new growth of grass and
  bushes was springing up; there were traces of an earthwork under a mass
  of thorny twigs. "It all started from here," he said, after a long and
  meditative silence. On the other hill, two hundred yards across a sombre
  precipice, I saw a line of high blackened stakes, showing here and there
  ruinously--the remnants of Sherif Ali's impregnable camp.
  
  'But it had been taken, though. That had been his idea. He had
  mounted Doramin's old ordnance on the top of that hill; two rusty iron
  7-pounders, a lot of small brass cannon--currency cannon. But if the
  brass guns represent wealth, they can also, when crammed recklessly to
  the muzzle, send a solid shot to some little distance. The thing was
  to get them up there. He showed me where he had fastened the cables,
  explained how he had improvised a rude capstan out of a hollowed log
  turning upon a pointed stake, indicated with the bowl of his pipe the
  outline of the earthwork. The last hundred feet of the ascent had been
  the most difficult. He had made himself responsible for success on his
  own head. He had induced the war party to work hard all night. Big
  fires lighted at intervals blazed all down the slope, "but up here," he
  explained, "the hoisting gang had to fly around in the dark." From the
  top he saw men moving on the hillside like ants at work. He himself on
  that night had kept on rushing down and climbing up like a squirrel,
  directing, encouraging, watching all along the line. Old Doramin had
  himself carried up the hill in his arm-chair. They put him down on the
  level place upon the slope, and he sat there in the light of one of the
  big fires--"amazing old chap--real old chieftain," said Jim, "with his
  little fierce eyes--a pair of immense flintlock pistols on his knees.
  Magnificent things, ebony, silver-mounted, with beautiful locks and
  a calibre like an old blunderbuss. A present from Stein, it seems--in
  exchange for that ring, you know. Used to belong to good old McNeil. God
  only knows how _he_ came by them. There he sat, moving neither hand nor
  foot, a flame of dry brushwood behind him, and lots of people rushing
  about, shouting and pulling round him--the most solemn, imposing old
  chap you can imagine. He wouldn't have had much chance if Sherif Ali had
  let his infernal crew loose at us and stampeded my lot. Eh? Anyhow, he
  had come up there to die if anything went wrong. No mistake! Jove! It
  thrilled me to see him there--like a rock. But the Sherif must have
  thought us mad, and never troubled to come and see how we got on. Nobody
  believed it could be done. Why! I think the very chaps who pulled and
  shoved and sweated over it did not believe it could be done! Upon my
  word I don't think they did. . . ."
  
  'He stood erect, the smouldering brier-wood in his clutch, with a smile
  on his lips and a sparkle in his boyish eyes. I sat on the stump of a
  tree at his feet, and below us stretched the land, the great expanse of
  the forests, sombre under the sunshine, rolling like a sea, with glints
  of winding rivers, the grey spots of villages, and here and there a
  clearing, like an islet of light amongst the dark waves of continuous
  tree-tops. A brooding gloom lay over this vast and monotonous landscape;
  the light fell on it as if into an abyss. The land devoured the
  sunshine; only far off, along the coast, the empty ocean, smooth and
  polished within the faint haze, seemed to rise up to the sky in a wall
  of steel.
  
  'And there I was with him, high in the sunshine on the top of that
  historic hill of his. He dominated the forest, the secular gloom, the
  old mankind. He was like a figure set up on a pedestal, to represent in
  his persistent youth the power, and perhaps the virtues, of races that
  never grow old, that have emerged from the gloom. I don't know why he
  should always have appeared to me symbolic. Perhaps this is the real
  cause of my interest in his fate. I don't know whether it was exactly
  fair to him to remember the incident which had given a new direction to
  his life, but at that very moment I remembered very distinctly. It was
  like a shadow in the light.'
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 26
target: Doramin is an impressive character with proud, intent eyes. He is also a fat man who is unable to walk alone. Two men are required to assist him when he wants to raise or lower himself. His wife, on the other hand, is a thin, delicate woman who fusses over her husband. She serves as his adviser. Their only son, Dain Waris, is twenty-five, and Doramin wants to insure a safe place for him after his death. Dain Waris becomes Jim's best friend, and the two respect each other greatly. Doramin sought Jim's help in fighting Raja Allang and Sherif Ali. Jim accepted the challenge, and establishing peace on the island became his purpose for existence. He knew that he would have to do something dramatic in order to beat the enemy and suggested openly attacking Sherif Ali. Dain Waris was the first to accept Jim's plan; soon all of Doramin's people became his allies, offering assistance.
feat_summary_analysis: Notes Doramin and his family are developed in this chapter. Dain Waris, who later becomes a key figure in the novel, is introduced for the first time. Conrad is careful to explain that Dain Waris and Jim are best friends. In fact, Dain Waris is the first to side with Jim on his plan to attach Sherif Ali and he also saves Jim's life. This chapter gives hints of the impending tragedy that is to occur later in the novel. Conrad emphasizes Doramin's two pistols, which Stein had given him. These pistols will be used to kill Jim. Conrad also emphasizes the close relationship between Doramin and his son Dain Waris. It is because of his son that Doramin wants Jim to help in making Patusan a peaceful island. When Dain Waris is killed, Conrad has prepared the reader for the chief turning against Jim. In his description of Jim's swift rise to the top of the Malay society, Conrad shows his ethnocentrism. Jim's whiteness is often emphasized in his description. He is the great white hope of European fantasy. The people are chaotic and warring before he arrives and upon his arrival, they become peaceful and orderly. Since Britain was still heavily invested in imperialism at the time Conrad wrote, he made imperialism, with its basis in white supremacy, seem altruistic.