The secret sharer by joseph conrad - Essay Example

The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad Research question Joseph Conrad s his story ‘The Secret Sharer’. What does ‘SecretSharer’ mean in his short story?Report on ResearchAccording to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word secret means something that not everybody knows and that people keep out of view from others. In the story, the term ‘secret’ is an adjective that describes the Sharer. Sharer is a word derived from the verb, ‘share’, and the Oxford English dictionary defines ‘share’ as obtaining a portion of something.

Sharer in the story refers to a person who communally resides in a cabin with the ship’s captain. When the two words combine, they mean that the sharer was a secret.Relevance/SignificanceThe captain in the story has just been there for two weeks where he feels completely as a stranger to his new command, crew and the ship as well. The captain then meets Leggatt, a run away murderer. He was the chief mate in another ship by the name Sephora where he had killed a fellow crew member accidentally weeks ago (Conrad 38).

They talk with the captain who tells him that he will hide him in his state room. The captain of Sephora comes looking for him but they do not find him. Nobody knows that Leggatt hides in the cabin and the captain keeps him as a secret. Leggatt asks the captain to drop him off in an island because he cannot go home and face incarceration. It is this rapport that assumes the central position of the entire account, hence the name “secret sharer”. Activities that follow include the captain commanding his crew to steer the ship close to the Kho-ring Island’s shores ().

This marks the climax of the secret whereby even other members are still in dark the intentions of passing by those shores where they end up protesting but captain’s words were final. They steer to the shores giving Leggatt time to escape whereas on the other side where he emanated thought of him having committed suicide (Conrad 19). Work CitedConrad, Joseph. The Secret Sharer. Interactive Media, 2012. Internet source. http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=lsMEAwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source =gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.