# Gentleman Brown — Lord Jim character guide

> Gentleman Brown in Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Brown, the dying Brown, the besieged Brown, All Brown, Captain Brown

**First appearance:** 0039-xxxviii

## Snapshot

A dying pirate and self-styled gentleman whose arrival on Patusan's shores forces Jim to confront the very question he fled civilization to escape.

## Who they are

Brown is a marauder worn thin by ill-luck, starvation, and the recklessness of a man who no longer cares where he runs. He possesses a satanic gift for finding the weakest spot in his victims, and in Jim he detects a man who cannot be won over by truckling but might be broken by a mirror held to his own past. Their conversation across the creek becomes a duel in which Brown's brusque despairing frankness—asking whether Jim too once understood that saving one's life meant not caring who else went—threatens to unravel everything Jim has built.

## In the story

### [Chapter III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/lord_jim_se/chapters/iii)

Not present in this chapter.

### [XXXVII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/lord_jim_se/chapters/xxxvii)

Dying in Bangkok, he gloats over having destroyed Jim, calling him a 'hollow sham.'

### [XXXVIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/lord_jim_se/chapters/xxxviii)

A latter-day buccaneer, desperate and ruthless, who steals a schooner and forces his way into Patusan.

### [XXXIX](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/lord_jim_se/chapters/xxxix)

Besieged on the hill; receives Cornelius's overture and learns of Patusan's internal divisions, seeing new possibilities.

### [XL](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/lord_jim_se/chapters/xl)

Plans treachery against Jim, orders a deadly long-range shot to terrorize the town, and listens to Cornelius's advice to kill Jim.

### [XLI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/lord_jim_se/chapters/xli)

Relates his meeting with Jim, expressing hatred and contempt for Jim's composure and authority.

### [XLII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/lord_jim_se/chapters/xlii)

Manipulates Jim by referencing their shared guilt and desperation, boasts of making Jim wince, and secures a promise of safe passage.

### [Chapter XLIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/lord_jim_se/chapters/xliii)

Brown receives Jim's note granting safe passage, listens to Cornelius's offer of a secret route, and departs with his men into the fog, showing his ruthless pragmatism.

### [XLIV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/lord_jim_se/chapters/xliv)

Leads the ambush on the Bugis camp, killing Dain Waris, and later vanishes.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/lord_jim_se/characters/brown
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/lord_jim_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/lord_jim_se/characters