Aidan O’Connor
‘[N]o catastrophe can alter British indifference to political ideals; the class system remains intact and impervious to revolution’ (.Allan Hepburn, ‘Detectives and Spies,’ 2009, p. 219)
How, and to what extent, does Conrad argue for or against social change in The Secret Agent?
Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent explores a fictional portrayal of London in the midst of enduring revolutionist hostility. Written in the early twentieth century, the western world was resisting an emerging international anarchist movement accountable for multiple high profile political assassinations in cities across Europe and North America. British media outlets’ appealed for extensive legislation to counter these radical political attacks to secure a national mainstream opposition to anarchy. This context coupled Conrad’s reference of current in affairs in his writings; with references like the British colonial conquest of Africa in
Heart of Darkness.
Combining topical subject matter with Romantic and realist literary elements,
Conrad’s attitude towards the plight of the revolutionaries in The Secret Agent is cynical. The book reflects Conrad’s negative personal outlook on real British society’s failure to modernise too; referenced in Patrick Brantlinger’s paper ‘Heart of Darkness: Anti-Imperialism, Racism, or
Impressionism?’:
“Conrad’s critique of empire is never strictly anti-imperialist. Instead, in terms that can be construed as both conservative and nihilistic, he mourns the loss of the true faith in modern times, the closing down of the frontiers, the narrowing of possibilities for adventure, the commercialisation of the world and of art, the death of chivalry and honour.”1
1 Patrick Brantlinger, ‘Heart of Darkness: Anti-Imperialism, Racism, or Impressionism?’, Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism: Heart of Darkness, ed. By Ross C. Murfin, (New York: Bedford Books, 1996):p.297
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Taking this outlook into account and analysing The Secret Agent through the lens of social change, I surmise that in The Secret Agent, Joseph Conrad offers a pessimistic outlook of social change that also critiques the existing efforts to oppose it. Conrad regards the suppressive machine of materialist capitalist society, and weaknesses of the individual in their domestic sphere, as obstacles too significant to overcome while revolutionaries remain in the minority and out-of-touch with social convention.
Through literary devices, Joseph Conrad establishes London’s society, representing western capitalist democracy, as an oppressive force that impedes social change, represented by the words and actions of revolutionaries, in The Secret Agent. Conrad’s uses symbolism and personification to empower objects synonymous with the novel’s characters. One example is Conrad’s portrayal of the piano’s loud sound as a violent quality contrasts the low- key conversation between Comrade Ossipon and ‘the professor’. This creates a pathetic fallacy of feeling using the adjective ‘aggressive’ and metaphorical application of the verb
‘executes’ to create the illusion of the piano exhibiting control over the characters’ anarchist revolutionary campaign:
“An upright semi-grand piano…executed suddenly all by itself a false tune with aggressive virtuosity. The din it raised was deafening. When it ceased, as abruptly as it had started, the be-spectacled dingy little man who faced Ossipon…emitted calmly what had the sound of a general proposition.”2
2 Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent, (London: Penguin Popular Classics, 2008):p.86
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Creating an environment where inanimate objects are more active than human beings, Conrad establishes a disparity that amplifies the power of materialism through the figurative animation and characterisation of these items. C.B. Cox, also acknowledges
Conrad’s humanising of objects including the piano as a commentary on anarchist revolutionaries’ passive relegation:
“Karl Yundt, Comrade Ossipon and Michaelis, the lazy, ineffective anarchists who discuss their plan’s in Mr. Verloc’s shop. In The Secret Agent, the inanimate world’s refusal to submit to the ordering devices of the human mind…The piano, with its absurd exuberance, deafens the beer-drinkers, reduces the little professor’s dreams of power to ridicule, as he retires to the tune of ‘Blue Bells of Scotland.’”3
While Cox’s interpretation is valid and somewhat pertinent to this essay’s thesis, the personification of objects and its contrast with inactive characters, it is not a reaction to the nature of humanity as Cox suggests. Instead, it is a figurative affirmation of the overwhelming force of capitalism, using symbolic imagery to convey a defining characteristic of capitalism, materialism. The message communicates society’s oppression and the stagnation of liberal consciousness in The Secret Agent’s version of early twentieth century London. Conrad’s use of this modernist observation conveys a pessimistic outlook on social change that suggests
Conrad’s indifference to the existing social structure.
Conrad’s use of symbolism to depict society in The Secret Agent as an oppressive machine that undermines social change also permeates the novel’s climactic murder of Mr.
3 C.B. Cox, Joseph Conrad: The Modern Imagination, (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1974):pp.83-84
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Verloc by his wife. Initially an emotional outburst following the association of Stevie’s death with terrorism, the murder scene’s interpretation is altered by a round hat that occupies the narrator’s attention:
“Then all became still. Mrs Verloc on reaching the door had stopped. A round hat disclosed in the middle of the floor by the moving of the table rocked slightly on its crown in the wind of her flight.”4
Conrad critic E.M.W. Tillyard alludes to the round hat’s presence as a method of diminishing the murder’s significance. He does not, however, elaborate further on Conrad’s decision to include it: “The grotesque rocking of the inverted bowler resembles and mocks
Mr. Verloc’s precarious state of mind in the last weeks, just as its dethronement from the eminence of his head duplicates and minimises his own downfall.”5
Corresponding with this essay’s interpretation of capitalist society in The Secret Agent, the round hat becomes a bowler hat, a fashion accessory providing a material representation of class, bourgeois status and capitalism; socio-economic concepts that, in a scene of emotionally charged personal conflict, convey capitalism’s ultimate ability to suppress the life of the individual by deflating the significance of Mr. Verloc’s death. This theory parallels the fictional capitalist society’s suppression of revolutionary activity that threatens the status quo
The Secret Agent. This observation is further evidence of Joseph Conrad empowering forces that are opposed to social change, suggesting weakness on both sides of this social conflict.
4 Conrad, The Secret Agent, (London: Penguin Popular Classics, 2008):p.214 5 E.M.W. Tillyard, ‘The Secret Agent Reconsidered’, Conrad: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. By Marvin Mudrick, (New Jersey, Prentice Hall Inc., 1966):p.104
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Another prevalent rhetorical technique enforcing the suppressive portrayal of
London’s society in The Secret Agent is ironic distance. Separating the reading audience from emotionally engaging with the novel’s content, this technique enables the reader to analyse and critique the content; publicising The Secret Agent’s function as a commentary on the prospect of social change in Western society. Conrad’s creation and subsequent destruction of ironic distance conveys the influence of capitalist democracy over the novel’s characters; transcending and exploiting the boundaries that separate readers from The Secret Agent. This is most aptly conveyed through the Assistant Commissioner. He is represented as oblivious to the forces of materialist society through his figurative description using the motif of compromising positions and inferior size when compared to the objects surrounding him and the invasive connotations of the dynamic verb ‘bite’:
“At headquarters the Chief Inspector was admitted at once to the Assistant
Commissioner’s private room. He found him, pen in hand, bent over a great table bestrewn with papers, as if worshipping an enormous double inkstand of bronze and crystal. Speaking tubes resembling snakes were tied by the heads to the back of the Assistant Commander’s wooden armchair, and their gaping mouths seemed ready to bite his elbow.”6
As the narrative develops, Conrad closes this ironic distance between the Assistant
Commissioner and the reader through the Assistant Commissioner’s subtle allusion towards the book’s status as a fictional production: ““From a certain point of view we are here in the presence of a domestic drama.””7 The extract conveys a perception the Assistant
Commissioner has that the novel’s other characters do not. Critic Tillyard consents to this
6 Conrad, The Secret Agent, (London: Penguin Popular Classics, 2008):p.86 7 Ibid.:p.181
5 Aidan O’Connor impression, although he fails to acknowledge the connection between this manipulation of ironic distance and the novel’s capitalist commentary; which remains influential over the
Assistant Commissioner. Nevertheless, Tillyard recognises the Assistant Commissioner’s deceptive nature:
“Here we might easily think of the Commissioner as an unconscious Laocoőn caught in the coils of officialdom. But very soon we learn that he is as well aware of the coils as we are and as averse to them as Conrad would like his readers to be…”8
Despite conquering ironic distance and revealing his awareness, the Assistant
Commissioner remains submissive to the protocols of his job. This conveys the scale of oppressive power that Conrad places on capitalist society in his fiction, which manifests as a transcending of the narrative. The circumstances support the thesis that Conrad sees attempts of social change as futile under an imposing capitalist democracy.
Joseph Conrad’s use of distance between characters in The Secret Agent includes a fundamental lack of understanding between individuals. This is represented using confrontational rhetorical questions and verbs in the semantic field of disagreement, Conrad manipulates the literary device of speech to continue empowering society over individual characters including Comrade Ossipon and the scientist:
“His thin, livid lips snapped together firmly. Ossipon began to argue…
“Don’t you see? Get the stuff from you in that way, and then arrest you with the proof in their
8 Tillyard, ‘The Secret Agent Reconsidered’, Conrad: A Collection of Critical Essays, Ed. Marvin Mudrick, (New Jersey, Prentice Hall Inc., 1966):pp.107-108
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“Proof of what? Dealing in explosives without a license perhaps.”…the utterance was negligent…
“I never affirmed I could not be eliminated…But that wouldn’t be an arrest. Moreover, it’s not so easy as it looks.”
“Bah!” Ossipon contradicted.”9
Conrad’s intentional insertion of disagreement into conversations between his characters is shared by C.B. Cox:
“…social relationships have become empty forms; all the people are imprisoned in their own obsessions, and during the many interviews in the novel continually misunderstand each other. Conrad seems to have abandoned hope that humans might create a meaningful community…London has been metamorphosed into a great cemetery, where humans exist in isolated fragments, without true connections, without honest relationships.”10
Applying this interpretation to London’s society restriction of public interaction in The
Secret Agent to prevent new threats emerging, the isolation of revolutionary characters becomes a tactic of social preservation that the capitalist entity establishes to protect itself.
Stifling the radical thought processes of revolutionaries, this system carries Conrad’s belief that revolutionary ideology, in its current form, is not capable of displacing London’s suppressive society.
9 Conrad, The Secret Agent, (London: Penguin Popular Classics, 2008):p.61 10 Cox, Joseph Conrad: The Modern Imagination, (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1974):p.89
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Conrad’s pessimism toward radical societal development is also carried through an emphasis on limiting those who venture outside of their domestic sphere. Mr. Verloc, Mrs.
Verloc and Comrade Ossipon experience forms of mental anguish and failure once they expose themselves to the world beyond their domestic circle. In the context of the anarchistic effort to force social change, such signs of weakness bring the characters’ ability to impose radical ideologies on their surrounding community into question. Comrade Ossipon’s contradiction between his role as the revolutionary movement’s principal writer and his indecisive nature is established by the revolutionary figure being “unable to control his feelings” and “…unable to make up his mind for a bold move. The robust anarchist was not exactly a bold conqueror.” 11 12 These unflattering representations determine that personal dilemmas render the revolutionary characters inferior to the machine of society once they emerge from their households and private meetings.
Joseph Conrad’s use of domestic life to convey his pessimism toward social change is justified by Conrad’s own personal existence. His wife, Jessie Conrad, reveals: “[Conrad’s] nature was not a happy one, and he often anticipated trouble long before it came. On the other hand, he had a curious way of shrinking from actualities when it came to facing suffering.”13
This tendency to suppress confrontation in Conrad’s reality resonates with his non- chronological narrative sequencing in The Secret Agent; a layout that ironically renders Mrs.
Verloc as the last primary character to learn of the reason behind her brother’s death. This
11 Conrad, The Secret Agent, (London: Penguin Popular Classics, 2008):p.221 12 Ibid.:p.219 13 Jessie Conrad, Joseph Conrad As I Knew Him, (Edinburgh: Morrison and Gibb Ltd, 1942):p.2
8 Aidan O’Connor obliviousness, combined with Mrs. Verloc’s positioning inside domestic sphere tending to her mother, Stevie, and the shop attached to her home creates an association between domestic setting and weakness that is presented as ignorance.
Revolutionary characters’ anarchist conduct in The Secret Agent is the final method
Conrad uses to argue against the capacity for social change in the western world. Anarchism’s destructive nature is imperative to its own demise, as the recurring literary motif of cannibalism suggests in multiple conversations between the novel’s revolutionary characters.
Karl Yundt’s close comparison between cannibalism and the free enterprise economic conditions of capitalist democracy is ironically contrasted against Mr. Verloc’s consumption of food at Stevie’s funeral; which holds cannibalistic connotations of its own. This connection between suggestive human consumption and the destructive nature of anarchism is confirmed in Avrom Fleishman’s The Symbolic World of the Secret Agent:
“The imagery of cannibalism is in accord with anarchist doctrine…The novel proves it to be an accurate description of the workings of society. In this condition men are dismembered not only accidently or metaphorically but systematically…”14
Between Stevie losing his life to the revolutionary cause and Mr. Verloc being subjected to a pseudo-simile that strips him of socially endearing qualities through guilt-free indulgence at the expense of losing a fellow revolutionary and family member, the fringe appeal of the revolutionary cause to the public masses is highlighted. This parallels weakness
14 Avrom Fleishman, ‘The Symbolic World of The Secret Agent’, ELH, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, Vol. 32, No. 2, 1965):p.210
9 Aidan O’Connor in the campaign to impose social change, revealing Conrad’s lack of optimism over the revolutionary desire to force social change on the western world.
Through investigation into Joseph Conrad portrayal of London’s capitalist society, the novel’s individual characters, the nature of the revolutionary and the literary techniques he uses to supplement his approach in The Secret Agent, we can determine Conrad is opposed to the concept of social change. The revolutionary characters’ failure to impose their own ideology on society suggests Conrad believes activism beyond social convention is a futile effort against the existing power structure. While evidence obtained through close reading of the text is strong, there are limitations to the essay’s question parameters and capacity that prevent further exploration into Conrad’s outlook on revolutionary activity. Examing Conrad’s other works and his personal upbringing would bring even more clarity to this perception of this society that Conrad appears to hold in both life and fiction.
Bibliography
Brantlinger, Patrick, ‘Heart of Darkness: Anti-Imperialism, Racism, or
Impressionism?’, Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism: Heart of Darkness, ed. By Ross C.
Murfin, (New York: Bedford Books, 1996)
Conrad, Jessie, Joseph Conrad As I Knew Him, (Edinburgh: Morrison and Gibb Ltd, 1942)
Conrad, Joseph, The Secret Agent, (London: Penguin Popular Classics, 2008)
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Cox, C.B., Joseph Conrad: The Modern Imagination, (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1974)
Fleishman, Avrom, ‘The Symbolic World of The Secret Agent’, ELH, (Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, Vol. 32, No. 2, 1965)
Tillyard, E.M.W., ‘The Secret Agent Reconsidered’, Conrad: A Collection of Critical Essays,
Ed. By Marvin Mudrick, (New Jersey, Prentice Hall Inc., 1966)
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