feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Lord Jim/section_31_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Lord Jim.chapter 32
feat_summary_id: chapter 32
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 32", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim41.asp", "summary": "When Jim saw the other three men hiding in the storeroom, he ordered them to link arms and walk out. Jim followed the men and ordered them to the river, with Jewel by his side. He then told the three of them to jump into the river and take his greetings to Sherif Ali. Jim, left alone with Jewel, realized how much he loved her. He again promised himself never to leave Patusan, where he was loved and respected. At the same time, he remembered his shame. Neither Patusan nor Jewel could make him forget the disgrace of his past failure. One day Jewel met Marlow. She told him that she was terrified that Jim would leave her. She was afraid that he would return to the world outside, and she would be left in misery in Patusan. Her mother had warned her against white men before she died. Now she was afraid that Marlow had come to take Jim away. He tried to reassure her that Jim planned to stay in Patusan forever and reminded her that she was the only one in Patusan that doubted Jim's word. At the same time Marlow realized that she could kill him if he did not convince her that Jim was not leaving with him.", "analysis": "Notes In this chapter, Jewel is developed more fully. She is depicted as intelligent and thinking; but she is also shown to be naive. She has a great fear of the \"unknown,\" the world outside of Patusan, for she has never been off the island. She is also truly afraid that Marlow has come to take Jim away from her. When he tries to reassure her, she has trouble understanding why Jim would want to stay in Patusan forever; but she hopes that he does. The fierceness of Jewel's love is brought out clearly. She thinks that Jim will eventually desert her, having been warned by her mother to never trust white men. She also would not hesitate to kill the person who came between her and her man. Marlow understands that his life is constantly in danger in Patusan; just as he could be killed by Raja Allang, he could also be killed by Jewel. Marlow also understands that Jim is now under Jewel's power, just as he is under the power of Patusan. The gradual darkening of the river and the night, erasing everything but vague outlines, is symbolic of Jim's being pulled into the darkness of Patusan. Marlow's idea that Jewel is overpowering Jim is a part of the fear of the native \"other\" which European imperialists entertained. As a woman, she is doubly \"other\" to the European man. Her partial European heritage seems to function only to make her an acceptable lover for Jim. Her characterization paints her as almost wholly \"native.\""}
text: 'Jim took up an advantageous position and shepherded them out in a bunch
  through the doorway: all that time the torch had remained vertical in
  the grip of a little hand, without so much as a tremble. The three men
  obeyed him, perfectly mute, moving automatically. He ranged them in a
  row. "Link arms!" he ordered. They did so. "The first who withdraws his
  arm or turns his head is a dead man," he said. "March!" They stepped out
  together, rigidly; he followed, and at the side the girl, in a trailing
  white gown, her black hair falling as low as her waist, bore the light.
  Erect and swaying, she seemed to glide without touching the earth; the
  only sound was the silky swish and rustle of the long grass. "Stop!"
  cried Jim.
  
  'The river-bank was steep; a great freshness ascended, the light fell on
  the edge of smooth dark water frothing without a ripple; right and left
  the shapes of the houses ran together below the sharp outlines of the
  roofs. "Take my greetings to Sherif Ali--till I come myself," said
  Jim. Not one head of the three budged. "Jump!" he thundered. The
  three splashes made one splash, a shower flew up, black heads bobbed
  convulsively, and disappeared; but a great blowing and spluttering went
  on, growing faint, for they were diving industriously in great fear of
  a parting shot. Jim turned to the girl, who had been a silent and
  attentive observer. His heart seemed suddenly to grow too big for his
  breast and choke him in the hollow of his throat. This probably made
  him speechless for so long, and after returning his gaze she flung the
  burning torch with a wide sweep of the arm into the river. The ruddy
  fiery glare, taking a long flight through the night, sank with a vicious
  hiss, and the calm soft starlight descended upon them, unchecked.
  
  'He did not tell me what it was he said when at last he recovered his
  voice. I don't suppose he could be very eloquent. The world was still,
  the night breathed on them, one of those nights that seem created for
  the sheltering of tenderness, and there are moments when our souls, as
  if freed from their dark envelope, glow with an exquisite sensibility
  that makes certain silences more lucid than speeches. As to the girl,
  he told me, "She broke down a bit. Excitement--don't you know.
  Reaction. Deucedly tired she must have been--and all that kind of thing.
  And--and--hang it all--she was fond of me, don't you see. . . . I
  too . . . didn't know, of course . . . never entered my head . . ."
  
  'Then he got up and began to walk about in some agitation. "I--I love
  her dearly. More than I can tell. Of course one cannot tell. You take a
  different view of your actions when you come to understand, when you
  are _made_ to understand every day that your existence is necessary--you
  see, absolutely necessary--to another person. I am made to feel that.
  Wonderful! But only try to think what her life has been. It is too
  extravagantly awful! Isn't it? And me finding her here like this--as you
  may go out for a stroll and come suddenly upon somebody drowning in a
  lonely dark place. Jove! No time to lose. Well, it is a trust too . . .
  I believe I am equal to it . . ."
  
  'I must tell you the girl had left us to ourselves some time before. He
  slapped his chest. "Yes! I feel that, but I believe I am equal to all my
  luck!" He had the gift of finding a special meaning in everything that
  happened to him. This was the view he took of his love affair; it was
  idyllic, a little solemn, and also true, since his belief had all the
  unshakable seriousness of youth. Some time after, on another occasion,
  he said to me, "I've been only two years here, and now, upon my word, I
  can't conceive being able to live anywhere else. The very thought of the
  world outside is enough to give me a fright; because, don't you see," he
  continued, with downcast eyes watching the action of his boot busied in
  squashing thoroughly a tiny bit of dried mud (we were strolling on the
  river-bank)--"because I have not forgotten why I came here. Not yet!"
  
  'I refrained from looking at him, but I think I heard a short sigh; we
  took a turn or two in silence. "Upon my soul and conscience," he began
  again, "if such a thing can be forgotten, then I think I have a right to
  dismiss it from my mind. Ask any man here" . . . his voice changed. "Is
  it not strange," he went on in a gentle, almost yearning tone, "that all
  these people, all these people who would do anything for me, can never
  be made to understand? Never! If you disbelieved me I could not call
  them up. It seems hard, somehow. I am stupid, am I not? What more can I
  want? If you ask them who is brave--who is true--who is just--who is it
  they would trust with their lives?--they would say, Tuan Jim. And yet
  they can never know the real, real truth . . ."
  
  'That's what he said to me on my last day with him. I did not let a
  murmur escape me: I felt he was going to say more, and come no nearer
  to the root of the matter. The sun, whose concentrated glare dwarfs the
  earth into a restless mote of dust, had sunk behind the forest, and
  the diffused light from an opal sky seemed to cast upon a world without
  shadows and without brilliance the illusion of a calm and pensive
  greatness. I don't know why, listening to him, I should have noted
  so distinctly the gradual darkening of the river, of the air; the
  irresistible slow work of the night settling silently on all the visible
  forms, effacing the outlines, burying the shapes deeper and deeper, like
  a steady fall of impalpable black dust.
  
  '"Jove!" he began abruptly, "there are days when a fellow is too absurd
  for anything; only I know I can tell you what I like. I talk about
  being done with it--with the bally thing at the back of my head . . .
  Forgetting . . . Hang me if I know! I can think of it quietly. After
  all, what has it proved? Nothing. I suppose you don't think so . . ."
  
  'I made a protesting murmur.
  
  '"No matter," he said. "I am satisfied . . . nearly. I've got to
  look only at the face of the first man that comes along, to regain my
  confidence. They can't be made to understand what is going on in me.
  What of that? Come! I haven't done so badly."
  
  '"Not so badly," I said.
  
  '"But all the same, you wouldn't like to have me aboard your own ship
  hey?"
  
  '"Confound you!" I cried. "Stop this."
  
  '"Aha! You see," he said, crowing, as it were, over me placidly. "Only,"
  he went on, "you just try to tell this to any of them here. They would
  think you a fool, a liar, or worse. And so I can stand it. I've done a
  thing or two for them, but this is what they have done for me."
  
  '"My dear chap," I cried, "you shall always remain for them an insoluble
  mystery." Thereupon we were silent.
  
  '"Mystery," he repeated, before looking up. "Well, then let me always
  remain here."
  
  'After the sun had set, the darkness seemed to drive upon us, borne in
  every faint puff of the breeze. In the middle of a hedged path I saw the
  arrested, gaunt, watchful, and apparently one-legged silhouette of Tamb'
  Itam; and across the dusky space my eye detected something white moving
  to and fro behind the supports of the roof. As soon as Jim, with Tamb'
  Itam at his heels, had started upon his evening rounds, I went up to the
  house alone, and, unexpectedly, found myself waylaid by the girl, who
  had been clearly waiting for this opportunity.
  
  'It is hard to tell you what it was precisely she wanted to wrest
  from me. Obviously it would be something very simple--the simplest
  impossibility in the world; as, for instance, the exact description of
  the form of a cloud. She wanted an assurance, a statement, a promise, an
  explanation--I don't know how to call it: the thing has no name. It was
  dark under the projecting roof, and all I could see were the flowing
  lines of her gown, the pale small oval of her face, with the white flash
  of her teeth, and, turned towards me, the big sombre orbits of her eyes,
  where there seemed to be a faint stir, such as you may fancy you can
  detect when you plunge your gaze to the bottom of an immensely deep
  well. What is it that moves there? you ask yourself. Is it a blind
  monster or only a lost gleam from the universe? It occurred to me--don't
  laugh--that all things being dissimilar, she was more inscrutable in
  her childish ignorance than the Sphinx propounding childish riddles
  to wayfarers. She had been carried off to Patusan before her eyes
  were open. She had grown up there; she had seen nothing, she had known
  nothing, she had no conception of anything. I ask myself whether she
  were sure that anything else existed. What notions she may have formed
  of the outside world is to me inconceivable: all that she knew of its
  inhabitants were a betrayed woman and a sinister pantaloon. Her lover
  also came to her from there, gifted with irresistible seductions; but
  what would become of her if he should return to these inconceivable
  regions that seemed always to claim back their own? Her mother had
  warned her of this with tears, before she died . . .
  
  'She had caught hold of my arm firmly, and as soon as I had stopped she
  had withdrawn her hand in haste. She was audacious and shrinking. She
  feared nothing, but she was checked by the profound incertitude and the
  extreme strangeness--a brave person groping in the dark. I belonged to
  this Unknown that might claim Jim for its own at any moment. I was,
  as it were, in the secret of its nature and of its intentions--the
  confidant of a threatening mystery--armed with its power perhaps! I
  believe she supposed I could with a word whisk Jim away out of her very
  arms; it is my sober conviction she went through agonies of apprehension
  during my long talks with Jim; through a real and intolerable anguish
  that might have conceivably driven her into plotting my murder, had the
  fierceness of her soul been equal to the tremendous situation it had
  created. This is my impression, and it is all I can give you: the whole
  thing dawned gradually upon me, and as it got clearer and clearer I was
  overwhelmed by a slow incredulous amazement. She made me believe her,
  but there is no word that on my lips could render the effect of the
  headlong and vehement whisper, of the soft, passionate tones, of the
  sudden breathless pause and the appealing movement of the white arms
  extended swiftly. They fell; the ghostly figure swayed like a slender
  tree in the wind, the pale oval of the face drooped; it was impossible
  to distinguish her features, the darkness of the eyes was unfathomable;
  two wide sleeves uprose in the dark like unfolding wings, and she stood
  silent, holding her head in her hands.'
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 32
target: When Jim saw the other three men hiding in the storeroom, he ordered them to link arms and walk out. Jim followed the men and ordered them to the river, with Jewel by his side. He then told the three of them to jump into the river and take his greetings to Sherif Ali. Jim, left alone with Jewel, realized how much he loved her. He again promised himself never to leave Patusan, where he was loved and respected. At the same time, he remembered his shame. Neither Patusan nor Jewel could make him forget the disgrace of his past failure. One day Jewel met Marlow. She told him that she was terrified that Jim would leave her. She was afraid that he would return to the world outside, and she would be left in misery in Patusan. Her mother had warned her against white men before she died. Now she was afraid that Marlow had come to take Jim away. He tried to reassure her that Jim planned to stay in Patusan forever and reminded her that she was the only one in Patusan that doubted Jim's word. At the same time Marlow realized that she could kill him if he did not convince her that Jim was not leaving with him.
feat_summary_analysis: Notes In this chapter, Jewel is developed more fully. She is depicted as intelligent and thinking; but she is also shown to be naive. She has a great fear of the "unknown," the world outside of Patusan, for she has never been off the island. She is also truly afraid that Marlow has come to take Jim away from her. When he tries to reassure her, she has trouble understanding why Jim would want to stay in Patusan forever; but she hopes that he does. The fierceness of Jewel's love is brought out clearly. She thinks that Jim will eventually desert her, having been warned by her mother to never trust white men. She also would not hesitate to kill the person who came between her and her man. Marlow understands that his life is constantly in danger in Patusan; just as he could be killed by Raja Allang, he could also be killed by Jewel. Marlow also understands that Jim is now under Jewel's power, just as he is under the power of Patusan. The gradual darkening of the river and the night, erasing everything but vague outlines, is symbolic of Jim's being pulled into the darkness of Patusan. Marlow's idea that Jewel is overpowering Jim is a part of the fear of the native "other" which European imperialists entertained. As a woman, she is doubly "other" to the European man. Her partial European heritage seems to function only to make her an acceptable lover for Jim. Her characterization paints her as almost wholly "native."