Untangling the twins of Conrad's psyche Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Joseph Conrad told the truth about the inner workings of humanity when he said through his character Razumov in Under Western Eyes: “A man's most open actions have a secret side” (pt. 1, ch. 2).This would become a ghostly introduction to his next work The Secret Sharer published a year later. Joyce Carol Oats says in the introduction of the text that “the young captain is the 'head', the conscience and the romantic fugitive Leggatt the 'body', the physical being” (13; introduction). However, with more detailed exploration, the characters, in fact, fill opposite roles. Conrad has created a wonderfully detailed portrait of the inner self through a doppelganger relationship which represents the philosophy of the opposition of the self: the ego (the captain) and the id (Leggatt). One can agree when Oats says that Conrad is "a master of the psychological novel" (7; introduction). Conrad shows his thoughts on the duality of man through the gripping story of a young captain who stumbles upon a terrible secret. However, the story goes beyond a simple mystery tale. It is a commentary on a stranger in a sea of ​​inexperience who must try to find a sharer of secrets, an inner self complementary to the opposing outer façade. Conrad establishes the roles of the captain and Leggatt through the story epiphany found in the final sentence of the text. “The secret sharer of my cabin and my thoughts, as if he were my second self, had lowered himself into the water to suffer his punishment: a free man, a proud swimmer racing towards a new destiny” (Conrad, 62) . They are both free men with a new destiny as punishment for breaking the rules and going against the norms established by sailors of the past. And if freedom were a punishment for harboring the fugitive, the captain would accept it. Commenting on the role of the narrator in a story, Norman Friedman argues that when the author switches to the point of view of the self “as a witness he hands over his completely past work to another. Even if the narrator is the author's creation, the author is now denied any direct say in the proceedings” (150). The credibility of the narrative comes from the fact that Conrad does not directly insert his opinion into the story. He delivers everything to the reader through the limited vision of the captain, who is unnamed and can be directly associated with Conrad himself. With the author outside the narrative and inside the character, it is the captain, a shell, who must see and realize everything to get closer to Leggatt, his wandering spirit, as a complete character. The logic behind his hiding a murderer is now a metaphor for a complementary opposite. No one is capable of doing great things alone. Another self must lurk in the shadows to spur them on, someone to share a secret with to survive in a hostile world full of strangers. The captain is the ego, which is the outer shell shaped by circumstances and cannot change completely; while Leggatt is the Id, that inner instinct that sweeps through consciousness and is susceptible to change, thus bringing about a change in the ego, or the character himself. An interesting philosophical question is: can a body survive without a soul, or, is there really a soul? Conrad tries to show the meaning of this unverifiable question through the secret participants. First, the captain is a shadow of a man, lacking in experience and self-confidence, being a total stranger to himself (Conrad, 19). He is missing something in his life, and when the fugitivehe boards the ship and the key element is found. In the same paragraph where Leggatt boards the ship, the captain is already calling him his “double” (Conrad, 25). An ideal is in the features of the young man who strikes hard in contrast with the other shipmates whom he does not know or even does not wish to know. At first contact, a clear line separates the two characters as individuals, but the lines soon fade towards the end of the story when they both become one. To contrast the two, Leggatt is totally free, like the biblical Cain, “quite ready to go.” wandering on the face of the earth" (Corrado, 31). He is skilled and confident in what he does, especially as a swimmer. He takes no nonsense from anyone, as he is willing to kill a man for not doing his duty and for endangering the lives of other men, “and that was a price enough to pay for an Abel of that kind” ( Conrad, 31). Even locked in the captain's cabin is a violation of his freedom because “as usual he looked through the porthole” (Conrad, 53), as a prisoner would look out of the window bars. Seeing this free soul, the captain also longs for freedom, albeit of a different kind: freedom from the constraints the establishment has placed on him. He tells Leggatt that he did not want to be on this journey, and perhaps felt constrained by command: "I was appointed to take charge when I least expected anything of the kind" (Conrad, 33). He can see that Leggatt is now released and free, and a sense of adventure lingers in the fugitive's future. The captain fears that following the law exactly would only mean continuing to lead a soulless life, without redeeming qualities which, perhaps, leads to a life similar to that of the “tenacious beast” (Corrado, 43), the captain of the Sephora : "To the law. His dark tenacity on this point had in it something incomprehensible and a little terrible; something, so to speak, mystical, quite separate from his anxiety not to be suspected of "tolerating any such behavior ". put in order.' Thirty-seven virtuous years at sea, of which over twenty were of immaculate command, and the last fifteen in the Sephora, seemed to have placed him under some ruthless obligation” (Conrad, 41). The captain knows what he doesn't want to be, but he hasn't yet realized what he can be. It's not whole yet. He is too nervous and, if he had been alone to reveal his secret, he would have collapsed under the pressure exerted by his teammates and Captain Sephora. If Leggatt is anything, it's the confidence, courage and strength of the incredibly inexperienced captain. “The ringing of the dinner bell startled me. He [Leggatt] didn't do it though; he just released his grip,” (Conrad, 56). And since he was not completely alone in command of the ship, he would be able to perform what would have been impossible for him to do before, nor would he have the opportunity to show his strength as a captain. The opposition of the self is what brings out this quality in the captain. The captain is very calculating in his thoughts; he seems to think too much about what will happen, and a sort of cowardice arises. However, Leggatt throws his worries to the wind, swimming until he finds safety or drowns. He will do what has dignity for himself. The clear distinction between the two participants begins to emerge at the end of the novella; the soul merges with the body; the Id and Ego come together to form a complete and complete character in the captain. At first, the captain sees Leggatt just as a model, a likeness that was "not at all like [him], really" (Conrad, 29), but towards the end of the story, the captain begins to think of Leggatt as if himself, literally. He will risk his own position and even his and his teammates' lives for the safety of his other self. His boss and first, 1997. 1-14.