SOURCE: "The Writer and His Use of Material: The Case of The Secret Sharer," in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. XIII, No. 1, Spring, 1967, pp. 179-94.

Curley was an American educator, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and critic. In the following essay, he examines Conrad's use of historical and autobiographical materials in "The Secret Sharer."

Several years ago I became involved in a controversy over the nature of a character in Joseph Conrad's story "The Secret Sharer." The question was this: Is Leggatt, the escaping murderer, a good man or a bad man? Symbolically, as everyone agrees, Leggatt stands for the captain's other self, but is that other self good or evil, his higher or his lower nature? I felt then—and I feel now—that Leggatt represents the higher nature of the captain, his ideal self in fact, and that everything in the story points in that direction. In...