Unlucky Jim: Conrad, Chance, Ethics

Abstract

Conrad’s fiction often focuses on luck, particularly on moral luck—those happenings that exceed our control but affect our standing in the world nonetheless. Such luck has a key bearing on the moral intelligibility of plot and character in Lord Jim. This is a novel that supports two sides of a paradox: morality should and should not be influenced by the vagaries of luck. There is no obvious resolution to this double vision in Conrad and it leads him to question the coherence of morality as a general system. He also doubts—however paradoxically—its basic fairness. If luck is all-pervasive, then justice itself is unjust.