How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
He wanted to go on talking for truth's sake, perhaps for his own also [...] (4.6)
There it is again, Jim's obsession with communicating the truth. Of course his audience isn't all that interested in the truth. Nope, they're interested in the facts. This disconnect between speaker and audience happens over and over again throughout the novel, and it just goes to show that communicating effectively is no piece of cake.
Quote #5
For days, many days, he had spoken to no one, but had held silent, incoherent, and endless converse with himself, like a prisoner alone in his cell or like a wayfarer lost in a wilderness. (4.9)
With no one to listen, Jim has to have a chat with himself. But do you think he's really communicating? We might imagine Jim wrestling with his demons, trying to get a handle on what has happened to him and how to move forward, but he doesn't seem to be getting very far.
Quote #6
"Complete strangers would accost each other familiarly, just for the sake of easing their minds on the subject: every confounded loafer in the town came in for a harvest of drinks over this affair: you heard of it in the harbour office, at every ship-broker's, at your agent's, from whites, from natives, from half-castes, from the very boatmen squatting half-naked on the stone steps as you went up – by Jove!" (5.3)
Gossip makes the world go round, and brings it together, apparently. Marlow's exclamation shows us how the Patna incident is so scandalous it managed to cross social and racial boundaries. Rich people, poor people, white people, "native" people, friends, strangers – everybody knows the shameful story of the cowardly sailors. Yes, they know the story. But do they know the truth? Can they ever know the truth?