Jewel's remark, "Men Always Leave Women" in Lord Jim

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Introduction

      This remark of Jewel is quite significant. She intended to say that men always desert their women or wives after being satiated. It means after satisfying their bodily urges, they discard women. They least care for their wives feelings. They make their wives helpless and put them in utter desolation and pain when they leave them.

Jewel's Personal Experiences

      Jewel has seen, through her own eyes, how her father had discarded her mother and, later on, she was ill-treated by her second husband, Cornelius, who was solely responsible for all the pain, sorrows and miseries and also the death of Jewel's mother. Though, Jewel loved Jim ardently, yet, she was, all the time, haunted by the fear that Jim would ultimately discard her in the same manner as her mother was discarded by her father. And, as a matter of fact, in spite of genuine love towards Jewel, Jim left her forever when he went to surrender himself in front of Doramin and allowed him to shoot him. This is another matter that if Jim had remained alive, he would have never left her (Jewel) as her father had done to her mother. Thus, Jewel's vision is very much prophetic but, at the same time, pathetic also. It is quite natural that when one is living in sorrow and ill-treated by others, at that crucial moment, when one's lover unexpectedly leaves him/her all alone in the world, he or she feels a severe shock and his/her soul gets a severe blow. At that drastic moment, it should not surprise us when one shouts as Jewel has done. But this is interesting to note that Jewel had no grudge against Jim as Jim had nothing against Jewel.

Historical Perspective

      If we keep aside Jewel's personal feelings about men, we notice a deep philosophy and historical truth behind her remark. Man is made with the purpose of merely procreation and women is to preserve and keep on the creation, so that equilibrium of existence and death can be maintained on this earth. From the historical point of view, man enjoys no status besides protecting his woman and children whom he procreates and woman has nothing except preserving and continuing the human race by utmost care for her off-springs. It is probably seen in all the ages and all parts of earth that man has been deserting woman or neglecting her after fulfilling his purpose of procreation. In this kind of neglect of women by man, we see no evil purpose but only biological need that he wants to fulfill with every woman he comes across, and in this course, he does not even recognize the significance of this particular law of nature which he is made to obey.

Biological perspective: Conclusion

      Woman, no doubt, suffers by such a natural law but she is helpless. Thus woman is given tremendous power of endurance. She is able to stand against all the destructive elements of nature or any torture given by man. If we see biologically, it is female sex that is original and male sex is the bifurcation of female sex, that is why female sex is more strong and able to endure any onslaught of male in this materialistic world.

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