An Ecocritical Interpretation Of Conrad's The Secret Sharer

Joseph Conrad(1857-1924),a British writer born in Poland,has a prominent position in the history of British literature,known as one of the eight modern British writers.Conrad,who has been at sea for more than 20 years,is adept at writing ocean adventure novels,known as the “master of ocean fiction”.The Secret Sharer is an important book of Conrad's Ocean series,a strange and dramatic story about a young captain.Compared with Youth and Typhoon,this novel shows the author's skills in portraying the inner world of the characters.From the research results from both home and abroad,it can be found that the perspectives of the research of Conrad's ocean novels are mostly concentrating on writing skills,theme,psychoanalysis,post colonialism,structuralism,existentialism,symbolism and other critical theories to interpret.However,with the development of science and technology and the progress of human civilization,ecological problems have gradually entered people's vision.As a new frontier of literary criticism,its feasibility and value in interpreting Conrad's marine adventure novels are becoming more and more prominent.In view of this,the thesis intends to interpret Conrad's ocean novel from the perspective of ecocriticism.From The Secret Sharer,it can be found that a small world built by ships is nested in the bigger world with the background of the ocean.From this both big and small world,the author interprets the three ecological crises that human beings are facing,namely,natural ecological crisis,social ecological crisis and spiritual ecological crisis.