The Character of the Captain in Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad
The Captain helps Leggatt because he identifies with him. The Captain and Leggatt both have similar physical characteristic traits. They also come from the same social class and are both isolated on their ships. Symbolism is used to express the Captains mindset as depressed, apprehensive, and insecure. Through this symbolism the Captain implied his insecurities with nature and his crew. Not only does the Captain and Leggatt share similar characteristic traits, but Legget also has qualities that the Captain needs. Leggatt psychologically completes the Captain by giving him a sense of decisiveness and confidence.
When the captain first spotted Leggatt, the Captain saw him as a "headless corpse". Soon after the Captain saw Leggatt as his "body double". Leggatt was the captains "own reflection in the depths of a sombre and immense mirror". They were the same size, and Leggatt fit perfectly into the Captains sleeping suit. When Leggatt went to sleep, the Captain looked at him and saw himself.
Not only did the Captain and Leggatt have similar looks, they both came from the same social class. They were both Conway boys, and close to the same age. As Conway boys, they had the same training for the Royal Navy. They are also close in age, the Captain is slightly older. "Being a couple of years older I had left before he joined."
Both Leggatt and the Captain are isolated from the rest of the crew. Leggatt was isolated from his ship the Sephora because he killed a man. Leggatt was the chief mate of the Sephora, and because he killed a man, his rights were taken from him. Leggatt was locked in his room every night, because the rest o...
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...Conclusion, the Captain identifies with Leggatt because they both have similar physical characteristic traits, and Leggatt psychologically completes the Captain. The Captain and Leggatt both share similar feelings, and come from the same social class. The two are almost identical in looks, close in age, and isolated on their ships. Leggatt gives the Captain characteristic traits that the Captain needs. Decisiveness and confidence is what the Captain lacked. Now with the help of Leggatt, the Captain gained these traits that were needed in order to succeed as a captain.
Symbolism was used to express the Captains minds set. In the beginning paragraphs, the Captain is viewed as depressed, apprehensive, and insecure. The Captain viewed the land as insecure, whereas the sea was stable. The Captain was secure with the sea, and wished he were more like it.
The author shows the reader the sea just as the sailor does as death, but more than death
The juxtaposition of the Titanic and the environment in the first five stanzas symbolizes the opposition between man and nature, suggesting that nature overcomes man. The speaker characterizes the sea as being “deep from human vanity” (2) and deep from the “Pride of Life that planned” the Titanic. The diction of “human vanity” (2) suggests that the sea is incorruptible by men and then the speaker’s juxtaposition of vanity with “the
...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 seagulls in this story are used to symbolize human frailty and nature’s indifference to it. As the men continue their journey through the fierce waves, Crane incorporates the use of imagery to describe the nature around them by giving it gloomy colors that are often used to represent death. Toward the end of the story, as the men are still hoping to be rescued, they encounter a shark swimming around the boat that symbolizes that something bad is about to happen. At the end of the story, readers learn that the Oiler, Billie, dies, but if one pays close enough attention to the detail used in this story there is enough evidence to foreshadow the death of one character. In this story, “The Open Boat,” Stephen Crane uses imagery and symbolism through the use of colors and objects in nature to depict the characters lack of power over
The two characters introduced during the letters section in the book are Robert Walton and the stranger who came onto his crew. Robert Walton is sending letters to his sister, which indicate he is on a voyage to the North Pole and how ambitious he is to be the first to sail there. During his journey, an unknown man boards his ship. My initial reaction to Walton was that he seemed to be very ambitious, but also a clear example of a romantic character. Additionally, he searches for someone who is in able to share his ambitions and romantic characteristics. My reaction to the stranger who boards the ship was that he seemed helpless at first until he was in a less fragile
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
The Seafarer highlites the transience of wordly joys which are so little important and the fact thet we have no power in comparison to God.
Symbolism is strongly represented through Kaplan’s short story. The symbols represented are the ocean, the killing of the doe and the woods. Visiting the ocean for the first time at the Jersey Shore was new for Andy. Since then she had been awfully frightened of the ocean. She believes the ocean to be a huge, vast that constantly moved, keeps shifting
February 15, 1894, was the most interesting afternoon in the otherwise dreary history of Greenwich Observatory. Earlier in the day, Martial Bourdin, a skinny anarchist, traveled by train from Westminster to Greenwich, concealing a small bomb. As he ominously ambled through Greenwich Park, towards the Observatory, something happened - no one knows exactly what - and he blew most of himself to shreds. The British, who loved to quantify in the late nineteenth century, noted that the explosion spread bits of flesh over a distance of sixty yards. Martial Bourdin remained alive for another half hour, but gave no hint as to the reason for his choice of such a bizarre target for a terrorist act (National Maritime Museum). To the chagrin of all anarchists, as Joseph Conrad observed, "the outer wall of the Observatory, it did not show as much as the faintest crack" (9). The British populace was outraged at this attack upon their cultured and refined society. London, which had been a center of many quasi-Utopian anarchist groups, soon began deporting various anarchists.
John Mayer, an American personality psychologist, who majors on personality issues, explains on the negative and positive sides of character traits by proposing that the negative one is based on unreasonable, timid, and apprehensive attributes, while the positive side concerns logical courageous, and gallant traits. It is important that a person identifies his or her different characteristics, and try to balance them so as to avoid getting various mental aberrations. “The Secret Sharer” is a story about a sailor with two-sided personality attributes as narrated by Joseph Conrad. In order for the audience to comprehend about distinct identities, Conrad incorporates the theme doppelganger in his story. According to the story, a young captain possesses a cowardly character, which is not good for a captain commanding a sailing ship. People who are meant to “lead others or be their boss should have fearless, heroic, and domineering characters” (Mayer 215). Due to his uneasy character, the captain first refuses to introduce himself to Leggat who he saves from the sea. The narrator states that "I thought the time had come to declare myself ‘I am the captain’” (Conrad 2). The statement shows that the captain is reluctant to reveal himself because he is aware of his spineless nature, given that he is the captain. According to Mayer, “Most people who possess leadership positions with weak character traits are often afraid to disclose their status to others” (Mayer 273). As the two sailors talk about their experiences, the captain starts to change his current personality and acquire that of Leggatt. The raconteur asserts that "I had become so connected in thoughts and impressions with the secret sharer of my cabin that I felt as if I, personally, were being given to understand that I, too, was not the sort that would have done for the chief mate of a ship like the Sephora. I had no doubt of it in my
This closeness that Melville creates conveys that the relationship between these two characters is a close one.
At first he does not seem content with his seafaring life. During the early descriptions of his time there, it is painted as a life of hardship and penance. Images and adjectives of the sea and life there are harsh and foreboding-"ice cold", "hung round with icicles" , "fettered with frost". The sea is seen as cold, and not just in the physical sense .It is remote, a place of despair , an earthly purgatory, where there is "always anxiety …. as to what the Lord will bestow on him"2. The narrator is cut away from the comforts ...
...e. As time goes on Tom finds it harder and harder to deal with the responsibilities of taking care of his family and the home. He decides to leave his job and his family for the merchant marines. He believes he will find the adventure he’s always been looking for. Instead of being free like he thought he would be, Tom is trapped by the memories of his sister. He says “I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!
The first character that we are introduced to is R. Walton. He is on a ship with many deck hands and crewmembers, but in his letter to Margaret, his sister, he states, "I have no friend. Even when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavor to sustain to me dejection." Although Walton has a boat full of men, he still feels lonely and friendless, and wishes he had a male companion to sympathize with him. Perhaps the reason that he feels this way is that he is looking for a different type of friend than what these tough sailors can offer. "I spoke of my (Walton) desire of finding a friend, of my thirst for a more intimate sympathy with a fellow mind than had ever fallen to my lot."
Upon leaving Boston, the young man’s status and attitude change drastically. He becomes a captive of Crow Indians who treat him badly. He becomes property of a “...scrawny, shrieking, eternally busy old woman with ragged graying hair..” He must gain her trust to earn more freedom around the camp and such. During this time he was “...finding out what loneliness could be.”