SOURCE: Billy, Ted. “First Command.” In A Wilderness of Words: Closure and Disclosure in Conrad's Short Fiction, pp. 19-27. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1997.

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 captains.

The cost of living is disillusionment.

—Conrad and Ford, The Inheritors

Although Conrad is popularly recognized as the Polish expatriate who became an English sea captain before turning to fiction, he actually spent only a little more than one year as a captain (not counting his steamboat experience in the Congo) in a maritime career that spanned almost two decades (ZN, 162). It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that his sea tales should emphasize the illusions of anticipation and the disillusionments of accomplishment. “The Secret Sharer,” “Falk,” and The Shadow Line chronicle how unfounded hopes dissipate in the trials...