Lord Jim: A Character in Search of a Plot

The article discusses the character Jim in Joseph Conrad's novel "Lord Jim." It notes Conrad's play with the Victorian Empire values of honour, duty and heroism in the context of imperialism. It shows that Conrad sees them as fictional, as the young Jim, inspired by reading of them in books, tries to personify them. The scholar Edward Said's book "Orientalism" is cited showing imperialist acquisitiveness justified by ideology. The article says Conrad anticipated this observation in his novel