Andrew's Wiki
Secret Agent

Folks

• Verloc, the secret agent. Incorrectly assured of his own political efficacy and the love of his household, he is bullied by his boss at the Russian Embassy into a great folly that kills his brother-in-law and leads to the death of his whole family. Lazy and largely useless, he believes he’s protecting the social order by being both a proletarian revolutionary and a secret agent pumping info to official Embassies to protect their leaders from assassination. His sketchy shop of girly pictures and rubbers also panders to human weakness. He loves his wife but doesn’t understand her and won’t communicate his fears or hopes to her (neither of them try to understand the other – sad). His attack on the Greenwich Observatory doesn’t lead to convincing the public of the danger of anarchists (who we learn are by and large innocent puppies)

• Winnie, his wife. Reserved, neat, fat, her whole life centers on the unified purpose of protecting her brother: her “militant love.” When he dies, she snaps, killing Verloc and herself, and indirectly leading Ossipon to insanity. She believes that “things don’t stand much looking into.” She and her brother are the true revolutionaries.

• Stevie, her “degenerate” brother-in-law who, through the mist of his mind, nonetheless has a clear hatred of injustice and pain that leads him, happily and convinced he’s doing the right thing, to the deed that leads to his death. Delicate, beloved, he’s the born anarchist (playing with fireworks and seeing red after witnessing violence). Conrad portrays him with sympathy and dignity.

• Winnie’s mother, who absents herself thoughtfully so she can secure the boy’s future—but it leads to his death. Just another example of a sacrifice that leads exactly to what it wasn’t meant for.

• Mr. Vladimir, the beloved society man who as the head of the Russian Embassy scares Verloc into action. He believes that nothing will shock the public anymore (they are too used to it) except attacking their real fetish: science. He wants the police to care more about revolutionists.

• Michaelis, member of the F. P. (Future of the Proletariat), a Marx addict who spews lines from the Manifesto and is supported by a society lady who “collects” interesting people. 276: his utopian dream of the world like a hospital, where strong take care of weak – which is ridiculed by the (evil) Professor. Harmless.

• Karl Yundt, the older anarchist who thinks of himself as pitiless and destructive, but he’s just a “senile sensualist” who will soon die. Harmless.

• Comrade Ossipon, the young ex-doctor who writes about middle-class hygiene as a Marxist diatribe (42). He becomes important when he ditches poor Winnie as a result of his love of Lombroso. A coward.

• the Professor, an explosives expert on the search for the “perfect detonator,” led to this because of his failure as a successful person in terms of job, career, relationships, looks, etc. The only truly dangerous anarchist, he has no respect for life and espouses the Nietzschean doctrine of the weak wanting power over the strong and the strong being allowed to destroy the weak. Conrad believes this type, “a pest,” is truly dangerous.

• Chief Inspector Heat, anarchist expert of the police how doesn’t like anarchists because they don’t follow the rules, whereas burglers safely obey the conventions of society, just on the other side of the street.

• Assistant Commissioner, Heat’s new boss (neither of them trust the other), bored and looking for some adventure, so he gets on the Verloc case. Wants to rid the world of secret agents, who just complicate an already bad situation.

• Under Secretary, the commissioner’s friend in Parliament, who’s just concerned about the fishes—a certain bill under consideration (just like Jock in Handful of Dust about pigs and the MP in The Way We Live Now about the new kind of currency)

Themes

• Futility, for the explosion doesn’t hurt the building much, doesn’t arrest the attention of the public, doesn’t make the police more worried about revolutionaries, but just kills a domestic circle. Anarcdhists “exploit the poignant miseries and passionate credulities of a mankind always tragically eager for self-destruction” (xxix) And yet the Explosion scene, with its “absurd cruelty,” “had to be done. It was a necessity” (xxxi) because of Winnie’s unwillingness to look beyond the surface of things.

• First political thriller, leaving room for novels to come

• Impersonation, for Conrad, very much like Katherine Mansfield, says that he became a revolutionist during certain moments in writing the book. The assistant commissioner’s journey into the sketchy neighborhood—esp the Italian restaurant (134-6)—turns him into a foreigner, so his identity is slipping off him. So, we have the flexibility of identity here

• London, a “monstrous town more populous than some continents…a cruel devourer of the world’s light” (xxxi) (see my book for more quotes about the ugliness and poverty of London)

• Form and artistic method is irony so he could both pity and scorn the people in it (he explains this in the preface)

• the 19th century, published in 1907, it is about 1885, and in the dedication he gives it to H G Wells as a “tale of the 19th century”

• Psychology, for he talks about the “psychological moment” (26), as well as 202, 216, 224 psychology as a reason for why things happen (that is, psychology provides motive)

• Circles, the interminable circles Stevie draws that are all about “chaos and eternity” (216), “great industry” (8), “symbolism of mad art” (41) that shows the world to be in chaos but yet with an underlying order to it

• Foreignness, because many characters have hints of foreignness (both Mr and Mrs Verloc have hints of French in them, and even the commissioner seems a little foreign), the denationalized people in certain neighborhoods of London

• Science is today’s fetish for the bourgeoisie, who feel that science is somehow responsible for their prosperity, not the state (ie, king) or religion (the church) (27). But Ossipon says it will save us, revealing that he too is bourgeois (278). See his faith in Lombroso (42, 265, 271), which makes him superstitious (compares him to a saint for Ossipon!).

• Bureaucracy and office life are painted beautifully, hilariously, by Conrad in regards to the police office (83, 122)

• Protection, you feel that Conrad really means 157-8, when the brother and sister have a talk about how the police can’t really protect you – and that they really exist to protect the property-owners from having people steal their property: the one moment where you have a natural Marxism not really ridiculed by Conrad

• The Press is an important source for news but has no moral power, except for the bad, because it is so influential

Form

• Representation of Time (245), is variable, doesn’t necessarily match “real time” but instead follows the emotional perception of time

• Even the anarchists must “make it new”

• Motif of the mechanical piano, randomly interrupting anarchist plots with a jingle or two, highlights the absurdity of their plans

• Bombs (29) as an expressive medium (“your means of expression”)

• Domestic drama we hear from the Commissioner that this whole explosion is just that (202), rather than some big political problem. And he’s right.

As Modernism

• Atmosphere of loss, futility, no faith in organizations to help you

• Representation of time is modernist (Bergsonian)

• Instability of identity

• cf The Man Who Was Thursday
  • Chesterton responds to Conrad by making the themes in the latter’s novel more explicit: both agree that true anarchists don’t exist, that the real enemy is nihilism and pure destruction, and that any “action” is really just navel-gazing and paranoid