Lord Jim Essay--Romantic Idealism

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Lord Jim Most people envision for themselves a perfect situation in regards to health, occupation, relationships, or any other aspect of life, though these goals are hardly realistic to attempt to reach. This dream of a perfect world, referred to as romantic idealism, tends to leave out the imperfections of life and focus only on the best possible outcome, leaving one reaching for an illusionary goal. Romantic ideals are not inherently wrong as they provide an ultimate goal to work toward, but they can be hindrances if reaching these illusionary objectives becomes the primary aim. Lofty ideals give people aspirations to live for, and when reaching these goals becomes more important than overall improvement, mistakes become rationalized to fit the ideals, leading one farther away from reality. In his novel Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad depicts events in the life of a man named Jim by the narration of Jim’s friend, Marlow, whose romantic ideals cause him to reason his mistakes in order to continue in his illusion of heroism. Conrad shows that failure to understand a romantic ideal in light of reality leads one to believe more in the illusion of perfection than real life. Jim’s strivings to realize his romantic ideals and his ultimate failure to do so lead him to rationalize his mistakes, suspending himself between the reality of his failures and what would ideally result. Jim establishes his romantic idealism by admiring the heroism of characters he reads about in “a course of light holiday literature” (Conrad 2). Jim admires the greatness of the characters he reads about and envisions himself as one of them in the future. While working on a training-ship as a sailor, Jim would forget about his duties, seeing himself instead “saving people from sinking ships, cutting away masts in a hurricane . . . always an example of devotion to duty, and as unflinching as a

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