 Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
A STEP BEYONDTESTS AND ANSWERSTEST 1_____ 1. Marlow draws some small consolation from his visit with the chief engineer (Chapter Five) because the man's hallucinations of fanged toads
B. suggest he hasn't entirely gotten away with violating the fixed standard of conduct C. show how much worse off Jim could be than he is already
B. Jim doesn't understand the severity of his crime C. Jim is more wounded by the Patna scandal than he's let on
B. it would be cowardly to run away C. he owes it to the 800 pilgrims
II. understand's Jim's fear, but can't forgive his dishonor III. declares that Jim has dishonored all sailors by his cowardice
B. II and III only C. I and III only
B. looking for any excuse to get out of such demeaning work C. aware that no one will tolerate his presence once they know who he is
B. overcome whatever obstacle you find most difficult C. keep your integrity even when you're surrounded with cowards and villains
B. Stein is eager to do a favor for his old friend Marlow C. Jim is the countryman of his old patron, Alexander M'Neil
B. a negative symbol connoting the illusory quality of Jim's life there C. both positive and negative
II. knows that Cornelius and the rajah want to kill him III. fears being abandoned as her father abandoned her mother
B. II and III only C. I and III only
B. needs to prove that he's not afraid of death C. is guided by his father's letter 11. Do Jim's accomplishments in Patusan make up for his behavior aboard the Patna? 12. Account for Brierly's suicide. 13. Consider Jim's romanticism in the light of Stein's comment that it is "very bad... Very good, too" (Chapter Twenty). TEST 2_____ 1. Jim's case disturbs Big Brierly because
II. Brierly thinks it reflects badly on the dignity of all sailing men III. it makes Brierly wonder whether he could pass the kind of moral test Jim failed
B. II and III only C. I and III only
B. the other officers won't come to his assistance C. his vivid imagination leads him to picture a panic, and he freezes
II. see things exactly as they are, while Jim is the victim of illusions and hallucinations III. are cynics, and he's an idealist
B. I and III only C. II and III only
B. merrymakers and hard workers C. aristocrats and peasants
B. understand the perfection that butterflies represent C. attain the kind of perfection he ascribes to butterflies
B. he thinks Jim is a white god and fears his revenge C. if Jim dies, Stein will cut off trade with the rajah
B. respect for the sultan C. European mind
B. Brown has information about the events leading up to Jim's death that Marlow needs to hear in order to finish his narration C. Brown has to narrate the events that Jim is too inarticulate to explain fully
B. of their common guilt C. that his men will give up their weapons and go quietly if Jim will guide them out
B. he never told her the truth about the Patna incident C. he let Brown and his men leave without a fight 11. Show how Jim's behavior on the training ship (Chapter One) foreshadows his later behavior on the Patna. 12. What is it about Jim that draws Marlow to him? 13. Describe the way Conrad fractures traditional chronology. ANSWERSTEST 1
11. Since Conrad provides no clear answer to this question, you'll have to make up your own mind as to whether Jim redeems or, at least, rehabilitates himself in Patusan. If you take a negative view, you can point to Jim's ultimate failure as a leader. As aboard the Patna, lives entrusted to him are endangered through a serious error in judgment. (The second time around, in fact, is worse, in that innocent people actually die.) The similarity of the names "Patna" and "Patusan" suggests that Conrad regarded the later episode as something like a repeat of the earlier one. You can also point out Jim's inability to put the Patna behind him. Neither he nor Marlow can stop remembering it; it even poisons his romance with Jewel. Jim's failure to take action against the invaders recalls the way he freezes aboard the Patna. Finally, you can cite Jim's deep sense of shared guilt with Brown as evidence that he still regards himself, on some level, as a criminal. But you can also make a strong argument that Jim becomes a better man in Patusan. If Jim flees the Patna because his nerve fails in the face of death, in Patusan he proves he can face death bravely. He risks his life in the assault on Sherif Ali; he regularly drinks the rajah's potentially poisoned coffee; and he goes to face Doramin at the end. Moreover, if the younger Jim dreams of being a hero but acts like a coward, the Jim of Patusan fulfills his deepest heroic ambitions. And his heroics do more than bolster his own position: they bring peace to the community and curb the tyranny of the Rajah Allang. Finally, while it's true that Jim's decision to release Brown backfires, there are excellent reasons to defend that decision. It's made with the safety of the community in mind: a battle would probably end in more deaths than the massacre. It isn't necessarily a fault- in fact, it's a sign of fundamental innocence- that Jim doesn't expect Brown to sneak up and murder men in cold blood. 12. Brierly's suicide seems mysterious at first, in light of his success and self-esteem, but some of the reasons emerge during his conversation with Marlow. Because he's so intent on public opinion, he thinks the Patna scandal diminishes the dignity of all sailing men. In fact, it seems that he regards himself so highly just because everybody else does. (He's received numerous honors.) Thus, a lessening of esteem toward seamen would mean a lessening of esteem toward Brierly- an idea that shakes his confidence. Brierly would suffer deeply if he had to face the kind of public censure that Jim does. Since Brierly, unlike Jim, has so little built-in self-respect, he starts to wonder how he would have behaved in Jim's shoes. After all, few sailing men are ever tested the way Jim was. Self-doubt begins, and since he has no built-in defenses (like belief in himself), it completely takes over. Brierly kills himself, finally, out of self-doubt- out of fear of his own cowardice. 13. Jim's romanticism- his tendency to set his goals in unreachable ideals (like storybook heroism)- is very bad, as Stein observes, because the distance between his dreams and his achievements is a constant source of pain and disappointment. He wants to be "so fine as he can never be" (Stein's words), and he's depressed when he fails. This problem is especially apparent in the first half of the novel: Jim keeps dreaming of heroic action, and acting- aboard the training ship, aboard the Patna- in unheroic ways. But being a romantic dreamer can also be "very good." Jim's stubborn belief in his ideals keeps him from growing disillusioned, like Marlow, or- worse- cynical, like Chester and Brown. He may not be able to reach his distant goal, but setting them high makes him reach that much farther (and attain that much more) than if he hadn't dreamt at all. None of the men in Patusan, for example, has the daring to come up with a scheme like Jim's plan for defeating Sherif Ali. Jim's big dreams are the foundation of his amazing success in Patusan. TEST 2
11. Jim spends much of his time on the training ship daydreaming about the amazing hero he'll be someday. One day he's called to help with a rescue during a storm. Confronted with a real rather than a fantasy crisis, he freezes, while the other boys rush to board the rescue cutter and row away without him. Jim's vivid imagination keeps him from being able to act: the whole fury of the gale seems directed at him personally. But Jim learns nothing from his failure to act. Instead of admitting his fear (so that he could learn to deal with it), he decides that the rescue mission was child's-play, beneath him. Later, faced with disaster on the Patna, Jim freezes again. Once again, he's the victim of his own overly vivid imagination, envisioning a scene of terror if the ship starts to go down and the 800 pilgrims wake and panic. Instead of efficiently taking what precautions are possible (for example, reinforcing the rusty bulkhead that's the only thing keeping the ship afloat), Jim stands stunned, as he had on the training ship. Faced with the terrible prospect his imagination creates, he finally abandons the ship with the other white officers- once again missing an opportunity to prove himself the hero he dreams of being. 12. At first Marlow is repelled by Jim's sullen insolence, his apparent indifference to the enormity of his offense in deserting the Patna. But with the "yellow-cur" episode (Chapter Five), in which Jim unintentionally shows the depth of his humiliation, Marlow's opinion starts to change. He admires the stiff-upper-lip control with which Jim is facing the scandal. As Marlow talks to Brierly, who wants Jim to run away from the inquiry, he perceives how courageous Jim is being to remain and face his accusers. For Marlow, Jim is "one of us"- a phrase that refers on one level to white, educated British mariners, but on a deeper level to persons who adhere to a certain fixed standard of conduct. Indeed, Jim has remained to face the court of inquiry precisely because running away would go counter to his firmly- held principles of honor. Marlow also admires Jim's stubborn idealism, though he occasionally becomes annoyed with his impracticality (for example, in refusing to stay at a job once he's been recognized). And he sees in Jim's ideals and illusions an image of his own lost illusions- lost because growing up is a disillusioning process. By implication (it's never stated outright), Marlow has a certain fatherly feeling for Jim- which isn't surprising, since he is twenty years Jim's senior. 13. Most novelists who wrote before Conrad told their stories in a straight time line, starting at the beginning and finishing at the end, with few jumps back and forth in time. (An occasional flashback to explain something was about as far as they went in breaking up the time structure.) Lord Jim, in contrast, is told with frequent jumps backward and forward in time- from Marlow narrating Jim's story, to Marlow listening to Jim at his hotel, to Jim aboard the Patna, back to Marlow and Jim, and then, perhaps, to Marlow's encounter with another character, such as the French lieutenant, who has information pertaining to Jim's case. Your best strategy for answering this question is to pick out a section of a few chapters and simply analyze the time shifts. The time sequence is slightly more broken up in the first half of the novel, but Conrad uses time shifts throughout, and there are few sections of two or three chapters that don't include significant jumps backward or forward. You should also keep in mind the extent to which Conrad's method remains traditional. Despite all the jumps back and forth, the overall time line follows Jim's life in the conventional way: from his early days (Chapter One) to his death (Chapter Forty-five). TERM PAPER IDEAS AND OTHER TOPICS FOR WRITING
GLOSSARY
GERMAN WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS
© Copyright 1985 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc.
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