‘He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet…’ Considering that Jim's height has no bearing on his story, perhaps no other great novel begins so nonchalantly. This manoeuvre is characteristic. At the very opening of the novel we encounter an example of the play of shadows which the author will carry on to the end. Right at the outset we are given a meticulous description of Jim's physical appearance, but his psychology will remain undeciphered until the end – undeciphered, that is, for the main narrator, Marlow, though not necessarily for the reader, whose knowledge throughout is broader than Marlow's. The reader knows, for instance, something about Jim's past. She or he knows of Jim's unrealized jump off the deck of the training-ship, in time to help save the shipwrecked sailors. She or he has learned, too, of Jim's day-dreaming about the courage and efficiency which he assumed himself to be ready to display in case of need; and knows that it was just this day-dreaming which prevented him from showing real courage and readiness for action when the opportunity to do so actually arose. This knowledge helps the reader to see more distinctly the psychological circumstances of Jim's fatal jump from the deck of the apparently sinking Patna. In addition, the reader will have formed her or his own opinion of Marlow and be therefore in a better position to interpret, even through the veil of Marlow's uncertainties, Jim's behaviour and motivation.