Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent
-just a simple tale of "utter desolation, madness and despair"

Vortigern Aedui AncientWorlds

Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent is a novel surrounding the world of a secret agent in London in the 1890’s. It is a novel full of semi-ironical political intrigue and espionage, based on an actual bombing that occurred at the Greenwich Observatory in 1894, which was a failed attempt at that. While it could be said that the novel represents the political outrages of the revolutionaries in London that occurred just ten years prior to the publication of the book, it could also be said the novel was a work of literary anarchy, somewhat of a revolt against the pro-Aristotelian novels that were the norm of the late Victorian age and continued on through the Edwardian age in Great Britain. It could also be said that the narrator himself is an anarchist, not in a political sense, but in a figurative sense by simply creating disorder out of a normally ordered form of the novel.

In the following pages, I will first prove that the novel itself is not political in any way, but rather an ironic look at the society of England. Then I will further explain that through this irony, the characters are of a different cut than those of previous forms of literature are, and do not fall into the glamorous world previously portrayed in literature. Finally, I will show through the organization of the novel, the attempted lack of organization as a metaphor for the anarchy portrayed in the novel. Throughout the process, one will soon realize that The Secret Agent is far removed from the likes of similar novels in both political and polemical methods.

The first impression one receives when opening Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent is marked by the subtitle of the book. We are told that this novel, although complicated by experimental temporal shifts and snapshot details, is just 'A Simple Tale'. Many have elaborated upon the theme of this novel as being more than just a 'Simple Tale' by drawing upon the political sentiments brought up throughout the book. Some would say that the novel is 'anti-anarchy' because of the physical portrayal of the anarchists in the novel. Others would imply that the novel is not only pro-anarchy, but also prophetic of the fall of the British Empire. Although I will be touching on these subjects throughout the paper, I am of the notion that the novel is not political in any sense, but rather 'A Simple Tale' as the subtitle suggests.

In the author's note prefacing the novel, Conrad admits that the tale "came to me in the shape of a few words uttered by a friend in a casual conversation about anarchists or rather anarchist activities" (xxxiii). The few words that were mentioned were most likely on the subject of a growing anxiety in Britain at the time, namely anarchy and invasion. Since the attempted bombing of the Greenwich Observatory in 1894, a growing number of literatures were released that played on the idea that any Great Empire is doomed to fall eventually.

The Author's Note was not added to the novel until 1920, and many disregard the explanations given as being unreliable, and "more to evade than to enlighten" (Tennant, x). It seems here that Conrad, or rather the persona of the narrator, was playing a part of a secret agent to explain the nature of The Secret Agent, leaving much unsaid in regards to his own moral and political beliefs. But, since the beliefs of the author are unreliable, considering the many contradictions stated by the author as we have thus come to realize, one must take a look into the world that surrounded the narrative and the narrator of The Secret Agent.

During the latter half of the 19th-century, the sun was slowly setting on the British Empire. More specifically, a series of events occurred during the 1890's that violated Britain's sense of safety such as the 1894 Russo-French Entente, the 1896 telegram of Kaiser Wilhelm II to Transvaal President Paul Kruger implying German support of the Boers against the British, the 1898 Fashoda Crisis that nearly led to war between France and Britain, and the Reichstag's 1898 passage of the First Navy Law that initiated large scale battleship production and prompted Germany's ambition to challenge Britain for control of the seas (Matin, 253).

There were also a large number of anarchists growing in Britain, immigrating to the country from the continent. According to Haia Shpayer-Makov, "newspapers, periodicals, and encyclopaedias[sic] emphasized the violent and destructive nature of anarchist theory and action, and presented the movement as society’s worse nightmare" (299). With all this publicity occurring in a period of just over 10 years, from the 1894 of the Greenwich Observatory bombing to the 1907 when The Secret Agent was published, anarchists were portrayed in fiction en masse.

In most of the Victorian and Edwardian novels, the anarchist was portrayed as being a member of the Upper Class or Upper-middle class. Shpayer-Makov asserts that "[a]narchist protagonists are sons and daughters of titled people, intellectuals or wealthy self-made men and women" (303).

Also in Henry James' The Princess Casamassima, the main anarchist Hyacinth is an illegitimate son of a duke, and while the portrayals of these anarchists are numerous, it is far from the actual reality. While rather than glamorizing revolutionaries, the narrator in The Secret Agent was simply showing the anarchists in a realistic light as to how they truly should be portrayed and not to assert any preference toward any affiliation, neither anarchists nor nationalists.

The vraisemblance of The Secret Agent plays an important role in distinguishing the realistic portrayal of anarchists in the novel. While many of the earlier Victorian and Edwardian anarchist novels had estates and mansions as the setting, The Secret Agent is set, for the most part, in a seedy section of Soho in London where most of the anarchists meetings take place under the cover of a pornography shop.

The dark description is not only designated to Soho, but even to the business area of London as well, as in the case of when the Assistant Commissioner leaves his office to go on beat. "His descent into the street was like the descent into a slimy aquarium from which the water had been run off" (SA, 147). This not only portrays London in a 'realist' sense, but also could be used to describe any large city in the world with a growing population.

The dedication to H.G. Wells also plays an important part in determining the realism and absence of political motive of the novel. The two novels by Wells mentioned in the dedication, Love and Mr. Lewisham and Kipps, are what Roger Tennant describe as being "realistic about the darker side of the city [London]" (xv). It is the impression that the underlying theme of The Secret Agent is inevitably the presentation of reality through the detailed snapshots provided by the narrator of the city of London, in all of its grimy, wet reality.

The world of The Secret Agent is set against the grimy underworld of London of the 1890's, but more specifically in "one of those grimy brick houses which existed in large quantities before the era of reconstruction dawned upon London" (SA, 1). It is against this backdrop in which the narrator supplies the complete opposite of what the British aristocracy would prefer the rest of the world to view her as. It seems as if the narrator is showing the true nature of Britain, far removed from the glamorous world of many of the Victorian novels.

The portrayals of the characters give a good implication that the narrator was not only making fun of anarchists, but also shows people as they actually truly are, complete with physical defects. Mr. Verloc, the novel's main character, is described as being large and overweight.

Upon meeting with Mr. Vladimir, State Councillor Wurmt agrees with an earlier statement made by Vladimir, saying, "You are quite right, mon cher. He's fat – the animal." (19). Wurmt also makes a point of addressing Verloc’s obesity with the statement, "You are quite corpulent." (18). Not only is Verloc portrayed in a negative way, but the rest of the anarchists are as well.

Michaelis, the ticket of leave apostle, is described as having a layer of fat on his chest and coming out of prison looking like a tub. Karl Yunt, the self-proclaimed terrorist, is described as being toothless, old, and bald and the professor as being a little man and owl-like. But not only are the terrorists themselves portrayed negatively, but other supporting characters are as well. Mr. Verloc's mother-in-law is fat, Sir Ethelred is fat, and Vladimir is bald, with wrinkled hands. While the physical descriptions are used to portray a realistic view of human life in the city, the narrator uses a reality breaking technique in the same instant with the names of the character.

The first place of the novel where there is a comedic sense of names is with the introduction of the Chancelier d'Ambassade Wurmt, whose name literally translates from German as 'worm'. One gets the sense that the man is actually wormlike in the actions such as the comment made about Mr. Verloc's weight. We also see a comedic play on names with the introduction of Sir Ethelred, the aristocrat in the novel. Many of the readers in Great Britain at the time would probably be familiar with the legend of King Ethelred, known unaffectionately as 'the unready'. While the name does have connection with the Anglo-Saxon king by the name, it also appears that the narrator was making a jest that both the police and the government was unready when the bomb went off in the novel.

Although this character of the novel is viewed negatively by the narrator, it is not clear that it was meant to be political in any way. A. Michael Matin asserts "[n]either the name of the home secretary nor the many other indications in The Secret Agent of Britain's insecurity...imply that Conrad meant to make a military or political point about the state of the nation’s defenses." (Matin, 263). To the contrary, the novel appears to be making a point to show the absurd nature of Britain's social identity with the presentation of absurd characters making absurd decisions.

While taking all of this into consideration, one could presently argue that the portrayal of the characters of the Upper class in such a fashion could represent the inability and inefficiency of the government at the time. On the other hand, one could also argue that the same comedic appearance of the revolutionaries also represented the disorganization of the parties that were present at the time. While both of these views are open to speculation, it is the opinion of myself that both are incorrect, and that they were simply vehicles to represent the comedic nature of the novel.

This is represented in the deed itself. The only true anarchist of the novel is the Professor, or as described in the narrative as "the unwholesome little moral agent of destruction" (83).

It is the Professor's only goal in life to create the perfect detonator, and it is he that provides the explosive material to Verloc just for the simple reason that he will create an explosion.

While the Professor represents the true nature of anarchy, the only person in the novel that represents the ideals of the anarchists is Stevie. It is Stevie who is at the center of the novel, it is Stevie who embodies the true ideation of the anarchists, but is mentally incapacitated. The irony in the representations of the Professor and Stevie is ironic in the fact that one would think the ideals would be reversed. Stevie who does know better one would think would want to destroy for no better motive than to do it, while the Professor, a learned man, should represent the ideals of the anarchists. While this connection in itself is not quite evident, there are others that the narrator uses to express this position.

The other connection one finds in the novel that shows identical ideals but separate morals is the connection between Chief Inspector Heat and the burglars. Inspector Heat believes, "the mind and instincts of the burglar are the same kind as the mind and the instincts of the police officer”, (SA, 92). It is with this in mind that Heat compares himself with the criminals, but he cannot identify with the anarchists because of such a difference of moral identity. While the anarchists are all lazy and slothful, a flaw that the Chief Inspector could not ever fathom to identify with in the proper protestant world of the early 20th-century.

Although the portrayal of the characters show the comedic nature, it is also important to note the organization and structure of the novel. The temporal shifts in the novel are used to further complicate the main story in the novel, that being the bombing of the Greenwich Observatory, the origin of world standard time, with a time bomb as the weapon.

Mark Hama suggests that Vladimir chooses the site as a target "because he understands that the bomb outrage will achieve its maximum affect due to the generally favorable position Greenwich holds in the collective British consciousness" (125). While it is arguable whether or not the use of time in the novel was the means of a political end, or if in fact the main point was to further disrupt the order of the standard style of the novel.

The use of a proleptic anachrony between the chapters where Verloc is first given instructions to place a bomb at the Observatory and the next chapter, after the bomb has been detonated is a good example of disrupting the order of time for the reader. It is of the opinion that this use of technique was not a metaphor for anarchist activity in society, but rather the narrator becomes an anarchist set on creating chaos in the novel. While this example is the most complex in the novel, it is followed by other temporal shifts and events, which further throw the reader into a tailspin and create the action leading up to the incident as an afterthought.

Another example of chaos reigning throughout the novel is the use of the player piano as a prop. It is during the conversation between Comrade Ossipon and the Professor where the piano "executed suddenly all by itself a valse tune with aggressive virtuosity" (SA, 61). While not known to the reader, it is at this time that the bomb went off, and thereby disrupting the chronology of the novel. It is the use of time shifts in the novel that thereby create the chaos, using the 'time bomb' as a vehicle for this disorder.

The piano also plays an important part in the end of the novel as well. After Ossipon finds out the destructive end of Winnie Verloc, the piano starts again and "plays through a valse cheekily, then fell silent all at once, as if gone grumpy", (SA, 310). It appears as if the piano accompanies the destruction of the novel, to somehow explain the unexplained destruction, all the while with the Professor sitting nearby. In a way it plays out on the keys the true desire of the Professor, in his need for total destruction for destruction's sake. It is all of these events, which sums up The Secret Agent.

While a reader may take the events in the novel as being political in nature, the actuality of the nature is not political, but rather a means to express the complexity of the techniques used in the work.

It becomes clear that the use of anarchists and destruction are a means to justify the complex nature of the work itself. The government and police officials, while seemingly oblivious to the true nature of the events discussed, sort of stumble upon the realization of the truth, while at the same time the reader becomes slowly becomes aware of the complexity of the work. The person who actually carries out the act of destruction, Stevie, remains at the center of the novel and the events of the novel revolve around him. Much like the pencil revolves around his compass point, bringing all of these facts to the surface.

Others have attempted to deconstruct this novel using it's political assertions as symbols for social and political strife, it is never neither explicitly nor is it implicitly described that the theme of the novel is any such thing. Conrad's The Secret Agent, while complex in many ways and forms, remains just as the subtitle names it: A Simple Tale. Nothing could be more simple than the structure of the novel, yet more complex.

Works Cited:

Bantock, G.H. Conrad and Politics. "ELH", vol. 25, no. 2. (Jun. 1958), pp. 122- 136.

Conrad, Joseph. The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale. Oxford University Press. London, 1983.

Hama, Mark. Time as Power: The Politics of Social Time in Conrad’s The Secret Agent. "Conradiana", vol. 32, no. 2. (2000), pp. 123-143.

Harrington, Elaine Burton. That "Blood-Stained Inanity": Detection, Repression, and Conrad's The Secret Agent. "Conradiana", vol. 31, no. 2. (Summer, 1999), pp. 114-119.

Matin, A. Michael. "We Aren’t German Slaves Here, Thank God": Conrad's Transposed Nationalism and British Literature of Espionage and Invasion. "Journal of Modern Literature", vol. 21, no. 2. (Winter 1997-98), pp. 251-280.

Shpayer-Makov, Haia. A Traitor to His Class: The Anarchist in British Fiction. "Journal of European Studies", vol. 26, no. 103. (Sep, 1996), pp. 299-325.