The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad
April 28th 2007 04:35
Joseph Conrad Souce : Joseph Conrad Society of America
My history with Joseph Conrad has been an uncertain one. I never liked his most famous works like Nostromo and Lord Jim but his lesser known works like Under Western Eyes are my favorites. The Secret Sharer is usually coupled with Heart of Darkness : the later is the more famous work but I care very little about it but the former is my personal favorite. Also, it was a pleasant surprise when I got to know that Conrad wrote The Secret Sharer, to take a break from the considerable difficulties he had during the composition of Under Western Eyes.
The Secret Sharer is the tale of a young captain who mans an unfamiliar ship and an unfriendly crew, somewhere in the gulf of Siam. He is also the youngest on board (except one). In the very beginning he tells us that he is "somewhat of a stranger to myself" and wonders " how far I should turn out faithful to that ideal conception of one's own personality every man sets up for himself." He will find out exactly how.
One night he chooses to keep the lookout, officially to help his tired crew, an unusual decision in itself. He finds a man floating in the sea, hanging to a ladder of his ship. The captain helps him up. The man's called Legatt and was a chief mate on a different ship called Sephora, where he killed an infuriatingly unhelpful ruffian during a storm and was therefore arrested and kept confined to a cabin for some weeks. He is now a fugitive, desperately running away from the ship's crew.
The captain hides Legatt in his bunker and the stealthiness of this act inspires the first true signs of leadership in him, as he acts to avoid his crew's suspicions. When Sephora's skipper comes aboard clearly suspicious that his ship is hiding the fugitive, he not only makes sure that the suspicion is unconfirmed but also weaves a possibility of Legatt's death and provides for a future cover. Finally, he performs some dangerous maneouvres to help Legatt escape.
The resmblance of Legatt to the captain, whom the captain keeps calling "my double" or my double self", has been called ambiguous. I don't think it is. Legatt does not resemble the captain except superficially ( their age, their hair). It is in the consciousness of his crew, or in the obsessive fantasising of that consciousness by the captain, that they would look similar. After all, his crew does not know him yet and does not appreciate his individuality and might as well confuse him with somebody else who is in a marginally similar shape. It is by indulging in a subversive campaign against that omnipotent collective, his crew, that he begins to wield power over them.
I also think that the entire act is premeditated. The captain knows the rumours beforehand and expressly makes sure he is on the lookout and not others, just to provide for the possibility. But why?
As an analogy, imagine a young officer sent on a mission to a war and who hears that a fellow marine had done something awful ( like Haditha "massacre"), something which the so-called civilised world will not condone. And uncertain of his own first command, would he not sympathise with that marine who must have come from the same background as his? "A jury of tradesmen" will not understand it and will rush to judgement and pounce on the incident. But "to be faithful to the ideal conception of his personality", will he not wish to help that disgraced marine, his other self, escape from the clutches of the brute law, to choose and carry his own "punishment" ?
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