The Secret Sharer Summary
Joseph Conrad

I On my right hand there were lines of fishing stakes resembling a mysterious system of half-submerged bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its division of the domain of tropical fishes, and crazy of as... Read more

Biography EssayJoseph Conrad is now widely accepted as one of the modernist masters of serious narrative fiction. Historically placed, he is a major figure in the transition from Victorian fiction to ... Read more

Writing in his The Great Tradition, the respected critic F. R. Leavis noted that Joseph Conrad "is among the greatest novelists in the language--in any language." Indeed, language is at the very heart... Read more

Joseph Conrad is now widely accepted as one of the modernist masters of serious narrative fiction. Historically placed, he is a major figure in the transition from Victorian fiction to the more perpl... Read more

The short fiction of Joseph Conrad is central to his literary achievement. Conrad wrote forty-three works of fiction, of which thirty-one are short, ranging from stories of a few pages to novellas of ... Read more

In the following essay, Facknitz investigates references to the Old Testament in Conrad's “The Secret Sharer.” There is little theoretical work on allusion, and what there is t... Read more

Said is a prominent American educator and critic who has written widely on modern critical theories. In the following excerpt, he analyzes autobiographical elements in "The Secret Sharer.... Read more

Curley was an American educator, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and critic. In the following essay, he examines Conrad's use of historical and autobiographical materials in "T... Read more

In the following essay, Brown illustrates how Leggatt exemplifies the ideals of existentialism. Discussions of Conrad's "The Secret Sharer" have emphasized that the narrator&#x... Read more

In the following essay, Schenck examines "The Secret Sharer" as the story of the narrator's development as a ship's captain, asserting that earlier criticism of the story l... Read more

In the following essay, Burjorjee demonstrates the presence of comic elements in "The Secret Sharer."     Ere Babylon was dust,The Magus Zoroaster, my dead... Read more

An American novelist, short story writer, biographer, and critic, Guerard is also the author of two studies of Conrad, Joseph Conrad (1947), and Conrad the Novelist (1958). In the following excerpt fr... Read more

In the following essay Andreas discusses Conrad's treatment of the individual versus society in "The Secret Sharer.' Official society, represented by government officers and th... Read more

Baines was an English editor and critic. In the following excerpt from his Joseph Conrad: A Critical Biography, which has been acclaimed as the definitive study of Conrad, he argues that the text of &... Read more

In the following essay, Williams interprets "The Secret Sharer" as an exploration of the narrator's capacity for immoral behavior and his rescue from the consequences of that beha... Read more

In the following essay, Simmons argues that the character of Leggatt represents an ideal of morality in the context of maritime discipline. There is a notable chronological relationship between &#x... Read more

In the following essay, Erdinast-Vulcan asserts that the captain-narrator of “The Secret Sharer” expresses a conflict between an aesthetic and an ethical mode of being. The statement,... Read more

In the following essay, Platt analyzes ethical issues in “The Secret Sharer,” contending that the narrator eventually satisfies the “conflicting claims of natural right and conven... Read more

In the following essay, Richardson argues that the narrator of “The Secret Sharer” is an unreliable narrator, and that the narrative may be read as a “skeptical parody” of ... Read more

In the following essay, Davis explores the theme of justice in “The Secret Sharer” in terms of the realities of nineteenth-century British maritime law. The relationships of the three... Read more

In the following essay, Philips compares Conrad's “The Secret Sharer” with two film adaptations of the story. “the Secret Sharer”: the Short Story Conrad recalls ... Read more

In the following essay, Casarino regards the closet as a crucial locus of same-sex desire and investigates the possibility of a homosexual relationship between Leggatt and the narrator of “The ... Read more

In the following essay, Billy discusses “The Secret Sharer” as a coming-of-age or rite-of-passage story and surveys several of Conrad's stories that feature young, male ship capta... Read more

Joseph Conrad addresses a theme, which affects our lives every day, at home, at work and even in the public. This theme is secrecy, which is one of the major aspects of the short story "The Secret Sha... Read more