Author's Note explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Honor and Shame

  Conrad directly addresses the theme of lost honor, defending Jim's acute consciousness of it as not morbid but a profound human experience.

• Judgment and Redemption

  The note touches on the judgment of critics and readers, and Conrad's effort to find fit words for Jim's meaning, implying a search for understanding and redemption.

Characters to notice

• Jim

  Conrad describes Jim as a figure seen passing by in an Eastern roadstead, appealing and significant under a cloud, and affirms that he is 'one of us.'

• Marlow

  Marlow is the narrator of the main tale, whose lengthy monologue is defended by Conrad as plausible and engaging.

Key passages

• “Some reviewers maintained that the work starting as a short story had got beyond the writer's control.”

  Some critics argued that the book began as a short story but grew beyond what the author could manage.

  Conrad addresses early criticism of the novel's structure.

• “I perceived that the pilgrim ship episode was a good starting-point for a free and wandering tale; that it was an event, too, which could conceivably colour the whole 'sentiment of existence' in a simple and sensitive character.”

  Conrad realized the pilgrim ship incident could serve as the foundation for a broader, meandering story that would shape the entire emotional outlook of a straightforward and impressionable person.

  Conrad explains his creative decision to expand the narrative.

• “I can safely assure my readers that he is not the product of coldly perverted thinking. He's not a figure of Northern Mists either.”

  Conrad insists that Jim was not created from twisted or morbid ideas, nor is he a vague, romantic figure from northern legends.

  Conrad defends Jim's character against accusations of morbidity.