The Secret Shater

The Secret Shater

Introduction

The short story, The Secret Shater was written by Joseph Conrad in early nineties. The story revolves around a narration from an anonymous captain and is narrated to be situated at Gulf of Siam. The story is explored form the viewpoint of a young captain. The new captain has recently joined the ship and is assisting the staff and directing the ship he is not familiar with. Furthermore the captain also doubts his capabilities and is caught up in dilemmatic situation where he is unsure if he would ever be able to justify the role of such an authoritative figure.



Discussion

With his dialogue: “That ideal conception of one's own personality every man sets up for himself” (Conrad, 2008), Conrad has made use of wonderful words to illustrate the insecurity of the captain regarding his abilities to lead such a great ship and his irony regarding the emptiness he feels because of being caught in a dilemmatic situation forms the critical and recurring theme of the story. Throughout the book quotations have illustrated that the captain fears if he will ever be able to lift up his capabilities to the level where he can fulfill the expectations of his crew and team. In the beginning of his long voyage the captain unveils the extent of his timidity by comparing his self to the ship: “we seemed to be measuring our fitness for a long and arduous enterprise, the appointed task of both our existences to be carried out”. He is acknowledging the fact that the following voyage will serve as an opportunity whereby he'd need to assess himself on every phase from every dimension, he is under pressure of the assumed command of considerably experienced crew.

The essence of the story revolves around the phenomena of self discovery that ...