Rachel+&+Ali

Ali - [|Critical Article]

Joseph Conrad __The Secret Sharer__ Setting: Gulf of Siam (Thailand), early 1900’s Characters: The Captain: Leggatt’s “protector”, protagonist Leggatt: murderer, previous chief mate of the Sephora, captain’s “secret sharer” The Skipper: weak man, skipper of the Sephora The Chief Mate: thought through everything The Second Mate: silent, wise The Steward: cooks for the crew and captain Summary: A new captain was just put in charge of a ship which is located in the Gulf of Siam. He feels like a stranger to his ship and crew. While at dinner one night he comments that he has seen the masts of a ship in the distance near some islands. His Second Mate confirms that it is called //the Sephora// and its carrying coal from Liverpool. As a nice gesture, the captain decides to give his crew a break and volunteers to man the ship by himself until 1am to let everyone else sleep. While the captain is out on the deck alone, he starts to pull up a rope latter that was still down from when a tugboat had come to the ship to hand out mail. As the captain is trying to pull it up, he realizes it is heavy and looks over the side of the ship to see a naked man holding on to the end of it. He climbs aboard the ship and introduces himself as Leggatt. The Captain fetches him one of his sleeping suits and Leggatt begins to explain himself. He was the previous chief mate of //the Sephora,// but because he accidentally killed one of the crewmen, his title was taken from him. The Captain decides to take Leggatt back to his stateroom so that one of his mates doesn’t see him. In the stateroom Leggatt explains that had been put under arrest and locked in a cabin but escaped and jumped off the ship. He sank his clothes so that the people aboard //the Sephora// would think he drowned himself and then he proceeded to swim all the way to the rope latter where the Captain had found him. The Captain agrees to hide Leggatt in his stateroom. He feels a strange connection to him, often referring to him as “my double” or “my other self”. He feels that they can both be strangers to the ship together. The captain of //the Sephora// arrives after a while to look for their escaped convict. After searching the ship and not finding Leggatt he declares that he will have to say that Leggatt committed suicide. After the close call, the Captain becomes more nervous about his crew finding Leggatt. Leggatt tells the captain he must leave the ship because he does not want to go back to England and get tried. The Captain steers the ship close to the island Koh-ring so that Leggatt can swim shore to the island. His crew does not agree with the Captain’s decision to head toward shore. They are scared that the bottom of the boat with scrape the shore, but the Captain continues anyway. Leggatt gets off the ship by lowering himself down a rope and into the water then swam away. He was wearing the Captain’s hat, which fell off and gave the Captain an object to look at to judge his distance from the shore. He steered the ship clear of danger.

Motifs: Namelessness: the Captain and the Ship The Captains hat: transformation of the Captain through Leggatt Sleeping Suits: wearing when the Captain and Leggatt communicate Scorpion: found in the first mates cabin at the beginning of the story Journey: of the Captain, Leggatt, and aboard the ship

Themes: Friendship: Between the Captain and Leggatt Loyalty: The Captain’s loyalty to Leggatt Secrecy: Hiding Leggatt from the crew Isolation: The Captain feeling like a stranger on the ship Self-Discovery: The Captain through Leggatt

Critical Essay: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/The-Secret-Sharer-Critical-Essay-The-Secret-Sharer-as-Allegory.id-8,pageNum-20.html