Essay on The Secret Sharer Erika Yoshida

The Secret Sharer is the story about two men in the Gulf of Siam. The main characters are a captain of a ship and a man whose name is Leggatt. The captain’s name remains unknown to us, as does the name of his ship. However, we do learn that Leggatt has killed a man and had fled the scene of the crime – the ship, Sephora, which was anchored two miles away. The sympathetic captain tries to shelter Leggatt in his own cabin. There it was that Leggatt became the captain’s “secret sharer” for a few days, and by the time Leggatt leaves the ship to escape to the mainland, we learn that not only Leggatt but the captain also is about to “strike out for a new destiny.” What is the author saying here? The answers are in the story.

The captain feels that he is a stranger on his own ship because he has been in command only a fortnight and also because almost all his crew are older and more experienced. He doesn’t think other members of the ship accept him as captain, and he doesn’t actually issue any commands. Instead, he abides by the advice of his crew. One day, he takes a turn of work at night to give his crew a rest. Around midnight, while the crew are sleeping, he notices that the ship’ s rope ladder still hangs over the side. When he tries to pull it up, he finds a naked man clinging to it. This is Leggatt, newly escaped from certain execution on the Sephora. And this is not even the most remarkable thing. Leggatt and the captain could have been twins; their physical resembling is so striking, so immediately a strong bond of unity is established between the two of them. The captain decides to shelter this murderer in his cabin, even when the Sephora’s skipper comes to find Leggatt the next day. At night, the two of them wear the same gray sleeping suits, and talk in subdued whispers about their lives. Their friendship becomes deeper and deeper, although their characters are completely opposite. The captain takes his sharer as a reflection of him “in the depths of a somber and immense mirror.”

One day, Leggatt is about to be found by the steward. The captain becomes so afraid from this, and so weary of protecting this dangerous secret, that he can no longer keep Leggatt on his ship. But he promises that he will move his ship as close as possible to the mainland, so Leggatt can make his way there.

This is the key to the captain’s transformation. He knows he is in an untenable situation. But he also remains loyal to his friend. He can do this only by completely altering his own character on the ship. When he makes his very first order “to set vessel on a tack that will bring her right in among the island,” members of crew think that their captain has gone crazy, as it is a dangerous move. After making sure that Leggatt has safely left the ship, the ship is in perilous proximity to the deadly rocks near the shore. Yet now, invigorated by his own courage, he is able to rescue the ship and all his crew from certain destruction.

The captain and Leggatt learned a lot of things from each other. The captain used to hesitate to command his crew and he was not a good captain. On the other hand, Leggatt was a wild man with no feeling of guilt from his murder. This is just my imagination, but I think the gray sleeping suits that both of them are wearing at night, are the symbol of their exchange of character. The captain’s white weakness and Leggatt’s black wildness mix from their talking, and the gray sleeping suits represent the mixture. We can say that the captain represents the light part of people’s souls and Leggatt represents the dark part of them. The captain and Leggatt are the duality of people’ s minds.

From the experience of living with the reflection of each other, the captain could be finally a true reliable captain, and Leggatt was able to be free from his punishment. So they strike out in new destinies to become a good captain or a free man, but I would rather say that “the new destinies” were their lives as more perfect persons with both a light and dark side of soul.