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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Leggat = The Captain: True or False?, August 27, 2006
In THE SECRET SHARER, Joseph Conrad posits an interesting choice for the Captain protagonist: should he follow maritime law and return a self-confessed murderer to his ship to face justice or should he allow his personal feelings to intrude and harbor a fugitive and let him escape? On the surface, this seems like a fairly routine choice, but in the world of Joseph Conrad no choices are ever easy. Readers who come to this novella from HEART OF DARKNESS are well aware that Conrad likes to place hesitancies in the minds of readers, most of which are couched in symbolic language which suggest a tapping into their psyches. In the case of the Captain, his choice is confounded by his perception of the man Leggatt who climbs aboard his ship. As the Captain sees Leggatt, he sees a man who is described in terms of one who is physically incomplete. Leggatt appears to be headless and as he ascends the rope from water to deck, Conrad's imagery suggests a watery re-birth. The Captain sees Leggatt and in the pages that follow calls him terms that circle back to himself: my double, my secret sharer, and my other self. It is clear that in Leggatt the Captain sees more than just a little bit of himself. They went to the same school with the Captain graduating only a few years prior. At this point, Conrad suggests that the Captain's decision not to hand Leggatt over to justice may not be simply a matter of identifying with Leggatt on a superficial level in that they merely share some common traits. With the Captain's heavily symbolic language, Conrad probes more deeply in the Captain's psyche and by extension in the reader's psyche by suggesting that the Captain's willingness to protect Leggatt even at the cost of his own career and the safety of his ship and crew lies in his subconscious linking of himself to Leggatt. For the Captain to hand over Leggatt to the law and to possible execution would be tantamount to being complicit in his own doom. To further complicate matters, on an even more subconscious level, Conrad raises the possibility that there is no Leggatt at all and that their entire relationship, replete with conversation, mutual interaction, and hiding Leggatt in his bathroom may have existed only within the Captain's mind. If this latter interpretation holds water, then in order for the Captain to maintain the illusion of Leggatt's existence, he had to act as if Leggatt truly existed, even to the point of endangering his ship by approaching too close to shore to allow Leggatt to jump off and swim to safety to a nearby isle. Conrad leaves the reader to ponder the state of mind of the Captain. When the Captain sees a floating hat at the end when Leggatt has jumped ship, that hat serves to remind the Captain and possibly the reader as well that the difference between reality and illusion may be no more significant than whether an abandoned hat floats or sinks in a stormy sea.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
creepy, wonderful, May 15, 2001
Conrad knew how to pack a punch in a small number of pages. He knew how to evoke dread. And he knew how to tell a story of the sea. It's not as involved or incredible as Heart of Darkness (but few things written in the English language have ever been)-- this little story about a stowaway is tightly told. Still, it will leave you with an appreciation of the abilities of a master.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
All good stuff, December 19, 2003
The Secret Sharer was one of the best books I've read in a long time. Even though it is really short there is a large amount of importance in every line. Whether its symbolism or some type of hidden meaning its there and it is what makes the book great.
Conrad puts you in the mind of of his characters and you seem to experience what they are going through. It gives you the sense that you are right there on the boat with the captain and his hidden passenger. You feel as if your the only one in on there little secret and if they are found out you will be too. Conrad then puts so much description into his characters you can actually get a feeling of what they look like and the way they act. The similarities between the two main characters is so great that at points you can't see a difference between them. This constantly keeps you on your toes and thinking about what is going on.
What makes the book though is the symbolism and how much meaning each little thing holds. You can read a paragraph and just take it s a regular story or you can think more into it and it holds so much more. It almost completely changes the way you look at what is happening.
This book is definitely worth reading. It makes you appreciate the genius that some people hold in there writing abilities. You will come out of this book with a changed perspective on the way things happen in life.
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