The story takes place on the far eastern seas: the realm of the unknown to the turn of the century sailor. The only scenery are the foreboding black masses that are the islands of an unknown archipelago. They rise from the darkness that is the bottomless water without visible detail until they terminate in the endless sky. And from this world of strange, foreboding, mystery and loneliness comes Leggatt. He is the captain’s "double," and he is everything the captain fears about himself. In his short story "The Secret Sharer," Joseph Conrad uses this strange man to show how he believes the Devil temps men toward disaster with their own weaknesses.

In this short story, I believe that Leggatt, the stranger from the sea, is an agent of the Devil, sent to tempt the captain towards disaster. It makes sense for the captain to be put to the test at this point in his life for two reasons. First, this is his first command, and second, he is alone. There is a biblical connection to here with the story of Jesus spending forty days and nights alone in the wilderness being tempted by the devil before beginning his ministry. As in the bible, the captain is alone. Everything around him is strange and unknown: his men, his ship, and the seas he is sailing. As in the bible, the captain faces temptation at the start of his career. Leggatt’s temptations are a test of the captain’s ability to hold command of a ship.

I conclude that Leggatt is an agent of the Devil from the descriptions of him given by Conrad. The story abounds with references to him as having supernatural qualities. When the captain first discovers Leggatt hanging on to the ladder he describes him saying that he "flickered in the sleeping water with the elusive, silent play of summer lightning in the night sky." He goes on to say that Leggatt’s whole body was "immersed right up to the neck in a greenish cadaverous glow." The captain speculates where Leggatt came from as he watches him over the side of the ship and wonders if perhaps "he had risen from the bottom of the sea." Leggatt’s physical abilities seem somewhat supernatural in that he was able to swim throughout the entire day without appearing excessively tiered to the captain late at night. Also, before Leggatt is even on board the ship, the captain feels like "a mysterious communication was established already."

Once on board, Leggatt takes on the persona of the captain and becomes his "double," a term which is repeated throughout the story when the captain refers to Leggatt. He appears almost identical to the captain, as if he they were twins. He attended the same school as the captain. He is immediately the only person the captain can readily talk to on a ship full of other men. They hold whispered conferences in the captain’s state room where they discuss their deepest thoughts, as if talking to themselves. After a close call at being exposed by the steward, the captain marvels at Leggatt’s ability for self-composer. "There was no agitation in his whisper. Whoever was being driven distracted, it was not he, He was sane. And the proof of his sanity was continued when he took up the whispering again. ‘It would never do for me to come to life again.’ It was something that a ghost might have said."

The one who is being driven distracted is the captain, not Leggatt. The captain’s fears about failure are brought to life with Leggatt’s presence. This is the captain’s first command, and his career as a seaman depends on this success, yet there in his stateroom is hiding the manifestation of all of his potential failures. Leggatt, no matter how sane he appears, is a murderer. He was once a first mate, but is going to become the next Robinson Crusoe because of his failings. The captain is faced with a choice. How long is he going to allow Leggatt to remain on board, or, how long is he going to dwell on the potential of failure before he accepts it as a constant possibility and goes on without fear? The questions are one in the same. Leggatt is a representative of the captains fears. This concept is made most clear as the Leggatt tells the captain his plans for escape. "‘As I came at night so I shall go.’ ‘Impossible!’ I murmured. ‘You can’t.’ ‘Can’t?...Not naked like a soul on the Day of Judgment. I shall freeze on to this sleeping suit. The Last Day is not yet-and...you have understood thoroughly. Didn’t you?’ I felt suddenly ashamed of myself. I may say truly that I understood-and that my hesitation in letting that man swim away from my ship’s side had been a mere sham sentiment, a sort of cowardice."

The climax of the story is when the captain leads his men and his ship in towards the shore to facilitate Leggatt’s leaving. It seems that the captain has swallowed his fears and is expelling the human form of them, Leggatt, from the ship. However, in doing so he still fears enough connection with that departing half of himself that he is willing to risk his entire ship and crew to see stranger off safely. Leggatt and the Devil are tempting the captain toward disaster, and in this story disaster looks a lot like Hell.

In order for Leggatt to swim to land safely, the ship must be close to shore, which is dangerous because of the shoals, reefs, and other natural hazards close to land. As they approach the islands the captain describes them as "ribs of gray rick under the dank mantle of matted leafage. The manner of life they harbor is and unsolved secret." As the captain and Leggatt prepare for the departure, Leggatt realizes that he may fail in his quest for the turn the captain towards failure. "He kept silent for a while, then whispered, ‘I understand.’ ‘I won’t be there to see you go,’ I began with an effort. ‘The rest...I only hope I have understood too.’ ‘You have. From first to last’-and for the first time there seemed t be a faltering. Something strained in his whisper. He caught hold of my arm." The captain understands that he must face down his fears and his own weaknesses, and Leggatt knows that the captain understands this.

The islands loom larger as the ship approaches. The captain describes the ship as being not "in the shadow of the land, but in the very blackness of it, already swallowed up as it were, gone to close to be recalled, gone from me altogether." Later he says that "such a hush had fallen on the ship that she might have been a bark of the dead floating in slowly under the very gate of Erebus." Because Erebus is roughly equatable to Hell in Greek mythology, it is to stretch to say that the captain’s care for Leggatt, his weaknesses manifest, are carrying the ship into disaster. The wreck of the ship on the rocks of the islands would be the actual physical disaster in this case, but the spiritual disaster for the captain would be that the Devil and Leggatt have been able to use his own weaknesses to lead him toward it. For this reason Conrad describes the islands as appearing Hell-like. They are a "great black mass brooding over our very mast-heads," or seen as casting a shadow that is "a darkness thrown by a towering black mass like the very gateway of Erebus."

Yet, for all the danger the captain has placed his ship, his men, and himself into, they all come out of the experience unharmed. In the end, the captain sees his hat which he had given to Leggatt floating in the water, which leads the reader to believe that Leggatt swam safely away towards the land. He left as he came, naked. From mystery into mystery. The last line of the story describes Leggatt’s departure with these words: "the secret sharer of my cabin and my thoughts, as though he were my second self, had lowered himself into the water to take his punishment: a free man, a proud swimmer striking out for a new destiny." Leggatt is the captain’s ability for failure and the captain’s evil side. His punishment will come on the Day of Judgment when the evil of the world is condemned. Leggatt, and the captain are free, Leggatt free of men’s justice, the captain free of the Devil’s temptations. The both have their own destinies, separate, opposite, and in the eyes of Joseph Conrad, as clearly defined as black and white.

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