SOURCE: Davis, W. Eugene. “The Structures of Justice in ‘The Secret Sharer’.” Conradiana 27, no. 1 (1995): 64-73.

In the following essay, Davis explores the theme of justice in “The Secret Sharer” in terms of the realities of nineteenth-century British maritime law.

The relationships of the three major characters in “The Secret Sharer”—the young captain and narrator, the fugitive Leggatt and his ineffectual nemesis, Captain Archbold—have received much critical attention. Yet tantalizing questions still arise as one attempts to account for the behavior and the attitudes of these characters toward each other. Why does the young captain immediately sympathize and side with the fugitive, apparently within minutes of his coming on board? Why, the next day, does he reject the tacit but obvious request of Captain Archbold that it is his duty to hand Leggatt over? In the days following this rejection, why does the captain persist in his...