Theme of The Secret Sharer, by Joseph Conrad

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The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad presents many themes throughout its complex narration of characters and the ideas it explicates through the novella. Amidst all the many themes that are presented there is one main theme that is thoroughly supported by Conrad in The Secret Sharer. The theme that is supported is, the ability that a person has, to change their moral and ethical beliefs due to their inexperience and self doubt as a leader. In the beginning the Captain is an upstanding, law abiding individual, yet his interaction with the murderer, and Leggatt, reveals him as someone who is insecure and easily malleable, this trait allows the captain to make many very illogical decisions, and in the end put his crew in harms way, undoubtedly showing that he is unfit to remain captain of the unnamed ship.

The Captain is quickly introduced into the novella as a young seaman, who was sporadically chosen to be the captain of a sailing vessel which is on its voyage home from off the coast of Asia, more closely illustrated as Vietnam and its Gulf of Siam. The young captain displays himself as an experienced sailor yet is filled with much self doubt as he is the second youngest man on the ship, and has limited leadership experience especially as the captain of a boat. The captains self doubt is easily manipulated, bye many individuals on the boat when he first obtains command. The captain's first sense of inexperience as a leader; and self doubt as a captain is shown when he decides to perform anchor watch for the first half of the night. "I felt painfully that I--a stranger--was doing something unusual when I directed him to let all hands turn in with out setting an anchor watch."(pg 652) The captain gi...

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... as the captain.

These actions that the captains has made on several occasions was foreshadow to the insecurities and self-doubt that would lead him to endanger his crew, and thoroughly depict the prevailing theme throughout the novella. The theme that was displayed underlined the significance of confidence and the art of acting knowledgeable and trust worthy, in order to remain in control and live up to the expectations that your peers have given you when they put their lives into your hands. The self doubt that the captain displayed led to the ignorant decisions that endangered his crews lives, if the captain did not display this self doubt, and obtain the murderer Leggatt, then his role of captain would have been flawless, and have preserved the lives of his crew better on the most part. Self-doubt leads to ignorance.

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