Reading Guide: The Secret Agent: With an Introduction by Giles Foden

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Joseph Conrad

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GILES FODEN London is under threat. It has become a haven for political exiles and anarchists. Frequent bomb threats and disturbances interrupt the lives of the city s inhabitants, who live in fear of the terrorists in their midst. One such terrorist is Verloc. He is the secret agent who is given the mission to strike right at the heart of London s pride by blowing up Greenwich Observatory. But his decision to drag his innocent family into the plot leads to tragic consequences on a more personal than political level.

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About Joseph Conrad

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About the Book

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Joseph Conrad interview/review

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Background to the novel

Greenwich Bombing of 1894

The Secret Agent was inspired in part by a terrorist attack on Greenwich Observatory in 1894, possibly the first international terrorist incident in Britain. In the later half of the 19th century, a series of anarchist inspired terrorist attacks hit many European countries. One of the earliest was the bomb assassination of the Russian Tsar Alexander in 1881 which inspired anarchists to many other similar attacks on the rulers and aristocracy. By late 1893 anarchist terrorists were particularly active in France, culminating in the bombing of the Chamber of Deputies in Paris in December.

Auguste Vaillant was convicted and executed for this crime in early February 1894, with a particularly futile ‘reprisal’ for the execution following close after when a bomb exploded in a Paris Cafe on February 12, 1894. Up until then, Britain remained unaffected by the anarchist campaign, although Irish Fenian bomb attacks had occurred in England as early as the 1860’s. On April 15th, 1894 at approximately 4.45pm, two members of the Greenwich Observatory staff were startled by the sound of a loud explosion nearby.

Outside in the park they discovered debris and fragments of bone on the ground, and on a nearby path a man with a missing hand and a gaping hole in his stomach, who died later at the scene. Investigators discovered the man to be Martial Bourdin, a 26 year-old Frenchman and member of a foreign anarchist club in London, the Club Autonomie. The detonation of the bomb was put down to an accident, though Bourdin’s motives for targeting the Greenwich Observatory remain a mystery. In the author note to The Secret Agent , Conrad recalls a discussion on the recent bombing in London with fellow author Ford Madox Ford, emphasising his horror and morbid curiosity in the case:

[…] we recalled the already old story of the attempt to blow up the Greenwich Observatory; a blood-stained inanity of so fatuous a kind that it was impossible to fathom its origin by any reasonable or even unreasonable process of thought. For perverse unreason has its own logical processes. But that outrage could not be laid hold of mentally in any sort of way, so that one remained faced by the fact of a man blown to bits for nothing even most remotely resembling an idea, anarchistic or other. As to the outer wall of the Observatory it did not show as much as the faintest crack. I pointed all this out to my friend who remained silent for a while and then remarked in his characteristically casual and omniscient manner: “Oh, that fellow was half an idiot. His sister committed suicide afterwards.” These were absolutely the only words that passed between us […].

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Starting Points for Discussion

Consider the title of the novel. Who is the Secret Agent? Is the story a simple one? Why do you think Conrad has chosen this subtitle?

Examine the relationship of Winnie and Mr. Verloc. Who do you think holds the upper hand in the relationship? To what extent do you think their marriage reflects typical Victorian attitudes towards women?

Do you think the novel is more of a political, or family drama?

Discuss the importance of politics in the novel. What does the Secret Agent tell us about prevailing political attitudes of the period?

Examine Conrad’s use of forewarning in the novel. What effect does this have? * Various characters become obsessed with phrases and sentences in the novel, for example the Chief Inspector and ‘ unknown person ’, Winnie’s ‘ the drop given was fourteen feet ’ and Ossipon’s ‘ this act of madness or despair ’. What effect does this repetition have?

Consider the depiction of terrorism, and of the anarchists in the novel. What do you think was Conrad’s view of the anarchist movement at the time?

The Secret Agent was written at a time when terrorist activity was increasing, and has been noted as one of the three works of literature most cited in the American media following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Consider the novel in light of recent global terrorist attacks. What comparisons can be drawn between the motives and responses to the attacks?

To what extent do you think Verloc is culpable in the death of Stevie? Is his death justified?

‘ the whole treatment of the tale – its inspiring indignation and underlying pity and contempt, prove my detachment from the squalor and sordidness which lie simply in the outward circumstances of the setting’ Consider the importance of the place in the novel. To what extent does it reinforce its themes? Do you agree with Conrad’s statement?

‘ Mrs. Verloc’s philosophical, almost disdainful incuriosity, the foundation of their accord in domestic life made it extremely difficult to get into contact with her, now this tragic necessity had arisen .’ Do you agree that Winnie and Mr. Verloc’s failure to communicate leads to the destruction of their relationship?

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