SOURCE: "Echo Structures: Conrad's The Secret Sharer," in Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 5, No. 4, January, 1960, pp. 159-75.

"The Secret Sharer" is an uncommon tale for Conrad, rare in its power of affirmation, and, because of its optimism, an uncommonly cheerful phosphorescence in the rather gloomy sea of Conrad's work.

—Mark A. R. Facknitz, in The Journal of
Narrative Technique, 1987.

[Leiter is an American educator and critic. In the following essay, he illustrates how repetition of images and actions and parallels to biblical stories affect meaning in "The Secret Sharer.'I

For the most part critics agree that the narrator of Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Sharer" is a double for the protagonist, that actions and gestures of this newly appointed captain are reflected in the movements and behavior of the recently escaped Leggatt, and that each man echoes the most private thoughts and sentiments of the other. A series of...