I think Leggatt is actually the unconscious half of the captain. With Leggatt, the captain is able to forget all the social rules and the moralities. Only when he is alone with Leggatt, the captain is able to express his true feelings and face himself as who he actually is. The captain is able to find the similarity between himself and Leggatt and uncontrollably fall in love with Leggatt, although it is against the morality at the time. There is always a strangeness exists inside the captain. At the beginning of the story he complains about how little he knows about his crew, "My strangeness, which had made me sleepless.... the ship of which I knew nothing, manned by men of whom I knew very little more."(Pg. 125) Because the captain is young and comparatively well educated, his present doesn't fit with the rest of the crew. On the other hand the existence of Leggatt brings many similarity and make the captain feel that he actually belong to this place. Thus, the unconsciously, Leggatt become the mental and emotional safe house for the captain, but the conscious half of the captain is telling him that hiding a murderer in his own room and having a relationship with a man is morally incorrect.
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