Lord Jim and Ordinary People

Introduction
Here is my book-comparison between Lord Jim and Ordinary People. Why dit I choose these books? Lord Jim's theme was the Sea and Psychologic, and because of I'm a fanatic watersportsman, I like this first theme very much. I had to choose a book from also from the Sea theme (and the Phychological theme) and that was Ordinary People. I'll look and give a comparison of the next parts of the book:
title, characters, theme, perspective, time, the author and the outline. At the end I'll give a conclusion


THE AUTHOR
The author of Lord Jim is Joseph Conrad. He became a sailor in the British merchant marine and rose to the rank of captain. He did not speak a word of English before he was twenty-one years old, but Conrad became one of England's great novelists. And here we have a difference between the author of Lord Jim and the author of Ordinary People; Joseph Conrad lived in England and Judith Guest, the author of Ordinary People lived in America. You can see that difference in the books. Judith Guest has been schoolteacher and journalist. Ordinary People was her first novel.

THE TITLE
The title "Lord Jim" refers to a person (to Jim). The title "Ordinary People" refers to something whitch the people in the book wants to be, but to which they are not able. The difference is that the one refers to a name and the other to something. The resemblance is that both titles refers to people or theirs doings.

THEME
The theme of Lord Jim is the Sea and psychological problems. Ordinary people has for a part the same theme, but also has the theme youthproblems. The theme of the sea in not the main theme of Ordinary peolple. In Lord Jim it is the main theme, so you can say this is a difference in the theme between these two books. You can also see the difference between the two books how to solve psychological problems. In Lord Jim, the oldest book, the main character doesn't go to the doctor but tries to solve his problems himself. In Ordinary people, the main character goes to a doctor and tries to let other people help him to solve his problems. I think this is because of the difference in time period the book were written in. You did'nt go to the doctor with such problems in the past. Nowadays, the doctor is more and more like a psychologist.

PERSPECTIVE
Both books are written in the "he-perspective",which makes them similar in that way. I think the authors intended to tell the story in this perspective. When he/she had told it in the "I-perspective" there was too much told about the thoughts and not about what the main characters do, and I think this is the most important.

TIME
There is a big difference in the time-structure in the books. In Ordinary People, the boat accident happens before the book begins. So the main happening is not actually described in the book. There is only written about the problems a person geta after that accident. In Lord Jim, the main happening happens in the book self. This is a big difference. Both books are written in chronological order. Another difference is that Lord Jim take place in about 1900 and the book Ordinary People in about 1970. You can notice this difference in time in the whole book.

CHARACTERS
The main character in Lord Jim is Jim. In Ordinary People the main character is Conrad. (That is a resemblance with the name of the author of the other book, but it is not an essential resemblance.) There are big differences between these two man. Lord Jim is a man, a bit older. Conrad is a boy, 17 years old. You can also remark the age in the way those people try to solve their problems. The problems of Jim are that he is surrounded by his problems. That is only a problem in his mind. But the problems of Conrad are that he cannot get friends and so on. That are big differences between their problems and also between their characters.


OUTLINE
First a very short plot of the two books.

Ordinary People
The year before the story begins, Conrad and his brother Jason (Buck) were caught in a storm while sailing, and Jason drowned. A few months later Conrad was driven by guilt and tension and tried to kill himself, and spent some time in a mental hospital. The novel describes how Conrad goes back to school and re-establishes his relationships with his friends and family. By the end of the school year he seems recovered, but meanwhile with stress on his parents of everything that has happened causes a serious misunderstanding between them and thay seperate.

Lord Jim
Jim was a officer on the Patna, a boat that came into problems in a storm. Thinking the bulkheads of the ship were about to crack, they had launched a boat and rowed away. There was no disaster and the Patna and her 800 pelgrims were towed into port by a French gunboat. Jim tries to lead a normal live but always the shameful past runs after him.

There are many resemblances between this two books: both are about a boating accident and both main characters have survived that boatingaccident and feel shameful about that survive. Jim and Conrad both have big problems to come back to the community and are both ran after by the thougths of the boating accident.

Conclusion
Lord Jim and Ordinary People share many resemblances but also have a couple of differences.

I liked the book Lord Jim the most, because it is about the boating live and less about the psychological problems. In Ordinary Peolpe it gets boring to read about all these problems. There is not enough action. The book Lord Jim is full of action and because of that i liked that book at most.