FAQ
Jagiellonian University in Krakow

“The Perfect Communion”: The Significance of the Body in The Secret Sharer

Publication date: 17.05.2018

Yearbook of Conrad Studies, 2017, Vol. 12, pp. 101 - 111

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843941YC.17.007.8664

Authors

Yoko Okuda
Atomi University, Tokyo
All publications →

Titles

“The Perfect Communion”: The Significance of the Body in The Secret Sharer

Abstract

This paper examines the sense of physical presence in The Secret Sharer, and analyzes how the narrator matures into a seaman worthy of a command by developing this sense. The paper is part of my research on the emotional sub-text of Conrad’s works. According to Najder, the work is based on Conrad’s “specialist knowledge as a seaman.” Seamanship demands a developed sense of physical presence. This theme is also important in Under Western Eyes, written during the same period. However, according to Jeremy Hawthorn, Conrad’s concern with “communicative and expressive potentialities of the physical human body” has not been given sufficient attention, and the same can be said about this work. In this paper, first, I will discuss the theme of physical presence; second, I will analyze the captain’s relationship with Leggett from this perspective; and, finally, I will argue that the captain’s relation with the ship changes as he develops his physical sense.

References

Download references

Conrad, J., The Last Essays, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010.

Conrad, J.,The Mirror of the Sea, London: Dent, 1972.

Conrad, J.,Notes on Life and Letters, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004.

Conrad, J., The Shadow-Line, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2013.

Conrad, J., ’Twixt Land and Sea, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008.

Cox, C. B., Joseph Conrad: The Modern Imagination, London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1974.

Guerard, A. J. Conrad the Novelist, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1958.

Hawthorn, J.,Joseph Conrad: Narrative Technique and Ideological Commitment, London: Edward Arnold, 1990.

Hillman, D., Maude, U. (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Body in Literature, Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Johnson, B., Garber, M., “Secret Sharing: Reading Conrad Psychologically,” College English 1987, vol. 49, pp. 628-640.

Kadowaki, J. K., Zen and the Bible, transl. J. Rieck, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.

Lothe, J., Conrad’s Narrative Method, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.

Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Schwarz, D. R. “‘The Secret Sharer’ as an Act of Memory [in:] J. Conrad, The Secret Sharer, ed. D. R. Schwarz, Boston: Bedford Books, 1997.

Shakespeare, W., Hamlet, ed. A. Thompson, N. Taylor, London: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 2016.

Steiner, J. E., “Conrad’s ‘The Secret Sharer’: Complexities of Doubling Relationship,” Conradiana 1980, vol. 12, pp. 173-86.

Watt, I. (ed.), The Secret Sharer: As Episode from the Coast, New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1985.

Watts, C., A Preface to Conrad, London: Longman, 1993.

Information

Information: Yearbook of Conrad Studies, 2017, Vol. 12, pp. 101 - 111

Article type: Original article

Authors

Atomi University, Tokyo

Published at: 17.05.2018

Article status: Open

Licence: CC BY-NC-ND  licence icon

Percentage share of authors:

Yoko Okuda (Author) - 100%

Article corrections:

-

Publication languages:

English