A DISTANT SECRET VERSUS SECRET DISTANCE; THE SECRET AGENT

When reading Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent one can observe that the novel appears to impose a certain distance on the reader.^[1] When trying to determine how this is achieved the title may be turned to in order to see if it contains any hints towards the nature of this effect. Judging from the title, one may ask the question whether the word “secret”, found in the title, hints towards an important aspect of the story as a whole, in short, one may wonder whether The Secret Agent is a secret novel.

When claiming that The Secret Agent is a secret novel, it is important that the term be defined; it obviously does not refer to a necessity of the text to remain kept from observation, either in general, or from certain specified persons. What, then, does it mean? Certain possibilities present themselves. Firstly, as the title suggests, it may indicate that it is a novel which deals with the proceedings of an agent employed by a secret service. Even though this may be partly true, it can not be given as the correct definition when speaking of The Secret Agent as a secret novel. This can be substantiated by considering that, even though Mr. Verloc performs quite a number of actions in his capacity of secret agent during the course of the time elapsed in the book, none of them, excepting his meeting with Mr. Vladimir, are directly related to the reader. It is not until after the explosion of the bomb when Mr. Verloc feels compelled to tell his wife of what has happened that the reader is presented with a number of crucial facts, enabling them to see purpose in Mr. Verloc’s sudden attention for Stevie, for example.

What can be deduced from this observation, however, is that the term can be used to signify the secrecy of the actions performed by the secret agent. Furthermore, seeing that the reader is left unaware of any conscious planning towards the bombing of the first meridian leaves the actual event with a far more convincing impact of the suddenness that it was Mr. Verloc’s mission to accomplish. Thus, immediately following chapter two, where Mr. Vladimir presents Mr. Verloc with his mission, the actions of Mr. Verloc as a secret agent are submerged, as it were, beneath the calm sea of his ordinary life, with things such as his inability to sleep well as ripples showing that something is indeed active beneath the surface.^[2]

When taking the entirety of the novel into account, however, complete accuracy has possibly not yet been achieved. Secrecy can be observed in a large amount of instances in the entire book. Next to his actions, Mr. Verloc’s secrecy has extended towards his feelings as well. From the first paragraph on, when it is mentioned that he has a wife, it is known that Mr. Verloc is married, his wife is the focus of the story for a considerable number of passages and in numerous passages both Mr. and Mrs. Verloc appear.^[3] Throughout the book it seems as if his attitude towards her is one mostly consisting of indifference, but, near the end of the book, in chapter 11, Mr. Verloc, in a bout of confessions, tells his wife that, in reality, he is “fond” of her.^[4] The hiding of emotions is not something particular to Mr. Verloc since it can also be seen in Mrs. Verloc, when she admits to Ossipon that she “loved” him for taking “a lot of notice of” Stevie.^[5] She never let it be known to anyone, since she “was a respectable woman”.^[6]

Likewise, the personae are oftentimes unaware of the motives that drive the people close to them. When Mrs. Verloc’s mother moves to a “charity cottage”, she is very much upset about it, and is generally in a state of “grief and consternation”.^[7] The reason as to why she’s moving remains a mystery to both Mr. and Mrs. Verloc, signified by Winnie saying “There’s no sense in it that I can see”.^[8] Moreover, Mr. Verloc has absolutely no suspicions as to the true motivation for his wife marrying him. He had thought that he was “loved for his own sake”, whereas his wife had chosen to marry him for the insurance of the continued care of both her brother and her mother, this because Mr. Verloc “accepted as a matter of course the presence of passengers”.^[9] One can even go so far as presuming that the entire inner workings of a character like that of Mrs. Verloc are secret from all but the reader, due to her being “systematically incurious” rendering her at least “always partly mysterious”, even to her husband.^[10] What is more, a character such as the Professor, with his mind continuously bent upon “ruin and destruction” remains a mystery to both the reader as well as to those surrounding him.^[11] This is backed by the author labelling him as “The Perfect Anarchist”, leaving him as an extreme in a world that is dubbed “mediocre, limp, without force”, a world to which, in other words, any extreme is unfathomable.^[12]

What this creates, is a world that, even in its being mediocre, represents an extreme, simply by being utterly mediocre, and, by doing so, is not in concurrence with a reality that the reader is expected either to be familiar with or to accept. Thus leading to a mental distancing of the reader from the characters, causing them to observe, rather than participate in, the action. This may have induced an effect amongst the public causing them “to take action against … the state of society and behavior represented”.^[13] That this indeed happened can be proven by referring to the Author’s Note at the beginning of the book where it is mentioned that the author found himself “reproved for having produced it [The Secret Agent] at all”.^[14]

The achievement of this distancing effect hinges on a number of factors. Starting with the characters there can be observed that not one of them is free of peculiarities. It is mentioned, for instance, that any other man would have felt an appearance such as Mr. Verloc’s “a distinct disadvantage”.^[15] By doing this, the author presents the reader with a protagonist who the public will not easily identify themselves with. Further examples of such characters include the single–minded, incurious Mrs. Verloc, the half–witted Stevie, and even the attractive Ossipon, whose lack of moral restraints is clearly pictured when it is said that he “was sure to want for nothing as long as there were silly girls with savingsbank books”.^[16]

In addition, with the actual bombing of the first meridian being related to the reader at a very early stage of the book a certain climax is attained after which the somewhat slow pacing of the story is continued, eventually shifting the scene to the police officers burdened with solving the case. Following this, the focus is again moved to Mr. Verloc’s surroundings, it is, however, also moved in time, to before the bombing. The disconnection of the order of events from their place in the plot in such an extreme manner achieves an alienating effect on the reader firstly by allowing them to see reason in some of Mr. Verloc’s actions before the bombing, which could not have been attained if it had been presented chronologically. Even though it must be mentioned that, at that point, the reader still has no knowledge of Mr. Verloc’s survival, so what is seen is that Mr. Verloc, by letting Stevie stay with Michealis and visiting him there, is providing himself with an alibi for leaving town every now and again.

Secondly, the passage featuring chief inspector Heat and the assistant commissioner shows the havoc the bomb wreaked upon the body of Stevie as well as the more general effect of madness and insecurity imparted upon society as a whole. As the conversation between the two progresses it becomes clear that chief inspector Heat had been aware of Mr. Verloc’s true occupation as a secret agent already, and that Mr. Verloc has been aware of this as well. This, then, leads to Mr. Verloc losing all sense of credibility in the eyes of the reader, since a secret agent who is known to the local authorities by name, face, and address can do nothing but compromise anything of confidential or covert nature that he attempts to bring to a successful close. This drives home the absurd nature of the activities of Mr. Verloc, undoubtedly he served his employer’s motives well for a time, but this time has passed and he busies himself with the observation of a number of impotent anarchists, while resting on his laurels.

When examining The Secret Agent, several observations can be made. A number of these observations can be collapsed into one, co–ordinating, statement, which claims that the term, secret novel, is applicable to The Secret Agent. It must be added, though, that this applicability deals with the secrecy of actions, emotions, motives, and inner workings of characters in the novel, as pertaining to either the personae, the reader, or both. Moreover, this secrecy is an important tool in establishing an alienating effect upon the reader. This effect is then strengthened by presenting the reader with characters with whom they will not familiarise due to the characters’ unusual nature, as well as by relating the story in an asynchronous manner. Finally, the reader is made to doubt the usefulness of any of the occupational actions that Mr. Verloc performs, since his cover has been compromised and he is known by the police. The Secret Agent presents its reader with a vivid picture of mankind’s open–eyed ignorance, concentrating upon its condition rather than its members.

05 May. 01

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