Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim, Stein, and the use and abuse of entomology

Abstract

Based on an implausible perception of entomology (the study of insects), George Waddington attempts to debauch the moral integrity of the character Stein in Joseph Conrad’s much-discussed novel Lord Jim. This tarnishing is part of an overall trend to undermine the greatness of literary artworks. Waddington’s accusations against Stein and the reception of his article destabilise the novel’s and critics’ more even-minded and largely positive perception of Stein’s nature, casting doubt about the novel’s morality as a whole. The present piece reads against the grain of this trend and reconsiders the critical reading of Lord Jim in terms of a more accurate appraisal of entomology’s praxes and values, and Stein’s entomology in particular. The author is a practising lepidopterist (student of butterflies and moths), which is the platform on which the piece offers its critique.

Contribution: The present article stabilises the reading of Joseph Conrad’s much-discussed novel Lord Jim. It shows that Stein’s entomology as presented by Conrad embodies an additional reason for celebrating the novel’s resonance and artistic merits, which have been celebrated for more than a century, because it creates a particularly informative and compelling picture of the character with a view to his entomological studies and the values that undergird them.