一、引言从1910年约瑟夫·康拉德的短篇小说《秘密的分享者》(The Secret Sharer)问世以来,关于其标题的争论一直没有停止过。众多评论家和无数读者一样,对小说标题的认识一直在下面几个意义间徘徊:一个分享的秘密;一个秘密的分享者;一个泄露秘密的分享者。作为一个标题,“秘密的分享者”使读者产生这样的预期:在故事结束之前,秘密、分享以及分享者都会被确定。而其结果恰恰令人失望:标题的确切含义并未在读完整个故事之后真相大白。 I. INTRODUCTION The controversy over its title has never ceased since the advent of Joseph Conrad’s 1910 novel The Secret Sharer. Many commentators, like innumerable readers, have been hovering in the following senses of meaning: a shared secret; a secret sharer; a divulged secret sharer. As a title, “Secret Sharer ” gives the reader the expectation that the secret, the share, and the sharer will be identified before the story ends. And the result is just disappointing: the exact meaning of the title did not come to an end after reading the entire story.