Joseph Conrad’s “The Secret Sharer” “ In order to live with direction and an understanding of what is going on around you, one must understand and know what goes on inside himself.” - William Page In Joseph Conrad’s “The Secret Sharer”, the Captain of the vessel finds that he does not know himself as well as he thinks. It is not until a castaway, Leggatt, arrives that the captain finally achieves a level of self understanding and completion. Leggatt serves as the Captain’s complimenting double, and his actions and thoughts eventually help the captain learn about himself and create stronger character. As the story opens, the young captain is standing out on the deck looking at the scenery as the ship pulls away. In the distance he notices a ship and on his right, two clumps of trees marking the river's mouth. He notices the “flat shore joined to the stable sea (83).” The captain can scarcely discern where one element of nature begins and another ends. Similarly, at this point he himself is at a faintly discerning line between immaturity and maturity, between landsmen and seamen. He is an outsider according to the skeptical crew and he is a stranger to his ship and himself. At this point, the captain’s lack of confidence in himself as a leader, and his fearful awe of the ship dominate his character. This is illustrated as the captain decides to stand guard over the anchor. While this task is often left to lower ranking officers on the ship, he does not allow any one to do the task but himself. The captain remains because of his overwhelming feeling of inadequacy as leader of the ship. He feels a clear distinction between what he must become and what he currently is. However, the captain is soon given help in finding himself and his place on the ship. While he stands guard, a man appears from the ladder. Leggatt was a persecuted sailor from the nearby ship. He decided to jump in the water and swim to the light he saw (the ship) as opposed to taking the punishment on his ship. As the captain allows him to come aboard, readers notice an almost immediate connection between the two men. Leggatt hops up on board and introduces himself to the captain, “the name’s Leggatt (88).” He presents himself to the captain as man who has nothing to hide. He does not try to conceal anything but shows “his hand”, and this is something the captain immediately ... ... middle of paper ... ...which way the ship is moving. Suddenly, he sees something white on the black water, his floppy hat. The hat itself is a symbol of good, of the captain's pity and mercy for "his other self." The item also represents the physical parting of the two men, who have throughout the story fused into one. More significantly, and ironically, however, the hat literally points the way to the Captain's successful maneuvering of his ship to a safe place. This is an act that insures his acceptance and the salvation of himself, his ship, and all those aboard the ship. By helping his "dark self," by accepting and helping him to grow, the captain helped himself to grow, and enabled himself to escape his dark sides reaches. After the captain rids himself of his “secret sharer,” he is a changed man. His feeling of inadequacy has entirely vanished and he takes charge of his ship and crew in full confidence. The full authority and self understanding that his job demands is no longer out of reach, but rather a part of him as a result of Leggatt. Works Cited Conrad, Joseph. "The Secret Sharer" ed. Jerome Beaty. The Norton Introduction to Literature 8th ed. New York. W.W. Norton & Co., 2002.
The first mate, the owner of the Sally Anne, dominated his life with his boat to the point of never being able to sleep right without the hum of its motors. This artificial connection made between mate and boat can have major complications. From the text we discover that this first mate has dedicated his life to sailing, ever since grade 10. At the finding of the Sally Anne, it becomes an unhealthy obsession of creating, but later not maintaining, the perfect boat. The text shows paragraphs of the first mate going on about the boat, and how he could not leave it for a day. The irony in this situation is that he spent so much recreating this boat, yet rejected the fact the eventual flaws that accompanied the years of use. It was always just another water pump and coat of perfect white paint away from sailing again. At this point it is clear that the boat has become a symbol for him and his insecurities. At the flooding of the boat and at the initial loss of life upon the Sally Anne's wreck the denial towards the destruction shows how he was using the boat as his only life line, now literally as he clings to last of his dream. At this point of the text, there is no survival, and no acceptance of the truth he must
As the ship plowed the sea for eight days, the chugging rhythm of its engines reverberated in Ted’s head: Da-da-DA-da-da-DUM-DUM, da-DA-da-da-DUM (Morgan, 80). Even after the Kungsholm had been docked for days, this rhythm was still stuck in his head. Taking Helen’s suggestion, he set out to develop a story around the rhythm, using the shipboard notes that began with “a stupid horse and a wagon (Morgan, 81).
In the novice the first mate hides behind his belief that the ship the Sally Anne would last forever and that he could stay attached to it. At the beginning of the story the mate had believed so forcefully and overwhelmingly that the boat could never be destroyed. He had believed that the boats “intricacy would protect it” He thought that because of how complex of a project that it had been and how majestic the boat had been would
...He is still anchored to his past and transmits the message that one makes their own choices and should be satisfied with their lives. Moreover, the story shows that one should not be extremely rigid and refuse to change their beliefs and that people should be willing to adapt to new customs in order to prevent isolation. Lastly, reader is able to understand that sacrifice is an important part of life and that nothing can be achieved without it. Boats are often used as symbols to represent a journey through life, and like a captain of a boat which is setting sail, the narrator feels that his journey is only just beginning and realizes that everyone is in charge of their own life. Despite the wind that can sometimes blow feverishly and the waves that may slow the journey, the boat should not change its course and is ultimately responsible for completing its voyage.
The captain is characterized as incompetent even at sailing a ship despite his title. The captain should have been the one to lead the castaways but his incompetence caused the island dwellers to despise him. Ten years after being marooned on the island, “the captain become a very boring person, without enough to think about, without enough to do.”(294). Trying to find a purpose to his boring life, the captain hovered around a spring, the island’s only water supply. He would tell the kanka-bono girls the kind of mood the spring was in on that day despite the fact that “The dribbling [from the spring] was in fact quite steady, and had been for thousands of years”(295). The kanka-bono girls did not speak english and therefore the captain’s attempt at humanising the spring were lost on the girls making it a completely pointless endeavor. Moreover,If not for the lack of tools on the island, the captain would have tried to improve the springs and consequently might have clogged it(296) potentially putting the life of castaways at risk. The captain was desperate to find a purpose to his mundane life on the island, so much that he was willing to put his and the island’s inhabitant 's life at risk. The captain’s attempt at accomplishing something to find a purpose in his life was useless and even
...o, while the novella’s archetypal structure glorifies Marlow’s domination of Kurtz. These two analyses taken together provide a much fuller and more comprehensive interpretation of the work. Conrad presents the idea that there is some darkness within each person. The darkness is is inherited and instinctual, but because it is natural does not make it right. He celebrates – and thereby almost advises – the turn from instinct. By telling Marlow’s tale, Joseph Conrad stresses to his audience the importance of self-knowledge and the unnecessity of instinct in civilization.
Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness Written by Joseph Conrad in the early 20th century, "The Heart of
The Commander of the division to which I belonged, as soon as soon as we were on board the ship, appointed me to boatswain, and ordered me to go to the captain and demand of him the keys to the hatches and a dozen candles. I made the demand accordingly, and the captain promptly replied, and delivered the articles; but requested me at the same time to do no damage to the ship or the rigging. We then were ordered to ...
The lantern and the snow are both bright and shiny, showing that they carry some hope, but the skipper’s eyes are emotionless, spiritless, and dead. There are no lingering emotions in the skipper’s eyes; no sadness, no remorse, not even any more confidence. Unlike the daughter who still has “salt tears in her eyes” (line 82), showing that she dies painfully and with a heavy heart, the skipper has no emotion mentioned. The author’s description of the skipper’s eyes finalizes how he felt nothing towards what he had brought his daughter into. This connects back to Longfellow’s message as it depicts how overconfidence can destroy a person without control. Judging by how the skipper felt no emotion in his final moments, he wasn’t aware of what was going on around him. The skipper still wasn’t aware that he destroyed himself; it happened uncontrollably. Longfellow also uses imagery to describe how the fisherman saw the daughter’s hair. It was like “brown sea-weed/ On the billows fall and rise” (lines 83-84). Readers feel sympathy and pity for the daughter whose body is helplessly being swung around by the waves. An innocent and loving being is destroyed because of the skipper’s
Captain Aubrey exhibits and demonstrates leadership characteristics that inspire his crew to be the best that they can be. One of the most important leadership traits that Captain Jack has is a single-minded focus on his purpose. All of his decisions are held up against the g...
The myth of Orpheus and his descent into the underworld is paralleled in Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Sharer," revealing a common theme, the narrator's self-fulfillment through the conclusion of his symbolic and inward quest. This parallel, which may be called archetypal, serves to increase the reader's sense of identification with Conrad's narrator, and it lends an otherworldly tone to the work as a whole. Likewise, these echoes of Orphic material lead the reader through three stages. These are a modern and secular rendition of the descent into the unknown, followed by a symbolic rebirth or rejoining of the fractured portions of the complete self, and finally the parting with the previous 'self' that ostensibly existed in the initial state.
The waves are violent and “most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall, and each froth-top was a problem in small-boat navigation.” (1352). The waves toss and jolt the small dinghy, which creates fear among the crew. After one tumultuous wave passed, another followed close behind, and “it was not difficult to imagine that this particular wave was the final outburst of the ocean, the last effort of the grim water.” (1354). The dinghy was no match for the waves, and “the craft pranced and reared and plunged like an animal.” (1353). The narrator describes the setting from third person point of view which encompasses the different characteristics of the individuals who make up the crew. The narrator is simply an observer and does not change the plot of the story, but he gives insight on the men’s thoughts. The four men on the boat form a brotherhood that is “more than a mere recognition of what was best for the common safety. There was…a quality that was personnel and heart-felt.” (1356). The men are in the same situation, face the same problems, and together their support keeps them united. They are devoted to each other out of respect, and dedicated to their goal as a group.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness ; And, The Secret Sharer. New York: Signet Classic, 1997. Print.
But even though Our Man is stricken with bad luck throughout this film, he always finds a way stays calm and always tries to fix the situation as best as he can. These types of examples can be shown throughout the whole film. The first example of this is when a shipping container collides with his ship. He comes up with a way to get his yacht away from the container away as it leaks running shoes into the ocean. Another example is when Our Man is not pleased when he discovers that his radio is waterlogged and his communications gear compromised. He tries to fix it when he climbs the mast to repair an antenna lead. But he sees storm is heading his way. He has no choice but to sail into the storm which tosses him and his boat around. His body is battered by the wind and the water, but through all of that he emerges from that horrible mess with only a cut on his forehead. Additionally, despite the feelings of puzzlement about his bad luck, Our Man has the foresight to realize that he will have to leave his beloved Virginia Jean and take refuge in a rescue craft. He gathers his meager supply of canned food, a large container of fresh water, and a few other odds and ends. He is smart enough to know that his only hope for survival is to use his sextant and nautical maps to get to a shipping lane where he can signal for help. Though his analysis and composure of the situation is outstanding, Our Man has
Stephen Crane’s story “The Open Boat” concerns four people who are trying to reach land after surviving a shipwreck off of the Florida coast. During the course of the story, they face dangers that are real physical threats, but they also have to deal with trying to make sense of their situation. The characters in this story cope with their struggles in two ways: individually, they each imagine that Nature, or Fate, or God, is behind their experiences, which allows them to blame some outside force for their struggle, and together, they form a bond of friendship that helps them keep their spirits up. .