The Diction of Cognizance

In Joseph Conrad's The Secret Sharer, we have what appears on the surface to be a purely adventurous story of rescue and escape. However, on deeper inspection it proves to be a psychological masterpiece of self-exploration, self-recognition and mastery. It becomes apparent that the ghostly Leggatt, however real his physical presence, is also the captains “double” or twin. It might even be expected that the captain

would hide leggatt and so he does. Symbolically, this represents the captain's (man's) attempts to repress certain drives and tendencies at work inside him. The captain vaguely realizes — for the first time in his life — that he too might have stumbled into a crime of murder as did Leggatt. An officer should be able to act unreflectively, yes; but not so unreflectively as to strangle a member of his crew in anger.

The “double” (Leggatt) is the embodiment of a more instinctive, more primitive, less rational self. How does the captain meet Leggatt in the first place? By irrationally dismissing the anchor-watch, and thus leaving a rope ladder to hang over the side of the unmoving ship. We even receive a clue that a plunge into the subconscious is about to occur — the captain is in his sleeping clothes — the perfect attire for an adventure into the id. Indeed, Leggatt is first perceiver as a “headless corpse!” a being that is, without intellect. Leggatt is silvery and fishlike as he swims in the water — that water which has always been a symbol for the unconscious. The psychologist Carl Gustav Jung argued that only such a descent, only such a rendezvous with the unknown can permit enrichment of the personality.

In order to observe The Heart Of Darkness, not as a tragedy, but as a distinguished psychological work, it should directly follow The Secret Sharer. The reason for this is that the two works are very similar and interwoven. There exists, according to Jung, a shadow, which is the part of ourselves which we view with horror, the underside of our personali