SOURCE: Facknitz, Mark A. R. “Cryptic Allusions and the Moral of the Story: The Case of Joseph Conrad's ‘The Secret Sharer’.” The Journal of Narrative Technique 17, no. 1 (winter 1987): 115-30.

In the following essay, Facknitz investigates references to the Old Testament in Conrad's “The Secret Sharer.”

There is little theoretical work on allusion, and what there is tends to focus on obvious types—quotation, paraphrase, direct reference—none of which adequately describe Conrad's complex and generally cryptic use of Biblical allusions in “The Secret Sharer.” Indeed, so ‘missable’ are some of his allusions that in the huge commentary on the story only a few essays pay more than passing attention to allusions. Louis Leiter and Terry Otten explored references to the mark of Cain and the story of Jonah.¹ Paul Bidwell, following Leiter, illustrated the parallels between the story and parts of Exodus, from the beginning, when the captain...