Joseph Conrad wrote the novel The Secret Agent. It appeared in 1907 editions. The book tells the story of Verloc, a secret agent for an unspecified nation living in London in 1886 who is given the task of carrying out a bombing in order to influence the British government. Though The Secret Agent is a work of fiction, its plot and characters were somewhat influenced by a real-life incident that happened in 1894: a French bomb maker was killed in London’s Greenwich Park by an explosive that went off too soon.

 The Secret Agent Summary

The book, which was released two years after Conrad’s article “Autocracy and War,” in which he characterized Russia as a perilous and unstable influence for democratic Europe, deals in-depth with terrorism and political turmoil. Although The Secret Agent was not well received when it was first published, it is today regarded as one of Conrad’s best works, and many people believe that it was prescient in that it foresaw contemporary political difficulties.

Adolf Verloc, a covert operative working for the Embassy, has been integrated into London’s communist Red Committee. He is called to the Embassy to meet with First Secretary Mr Vladimir, who chastises him for the lack of tangible results from his work.

Rather than merely preventing attacks, Mr Verloc is told to direct his radical associates to commit a terrorist act that will attack the very foundation of the British middle class in order to persuade lawmakers to pass repressive legislation.

Red Committee members Michaelis, Comrade Ossipon, and Karl Yundt are guests of Mr Verloc, who lives in his shop selling dubious goods with his wife Winnie, her mentally challenged brother Stevie, and her mother. The radicals are ready to make self-important claims, but Mr Verloc doubts that they will be able to pull off the incredible deed that Mr Vladimir has asked him to perform.

Ossipon meets the Professor, a peculiar, reclusive man who makes explosives, at a later time. Ossipon hands him a newspaper item on the Greenwich Bomb Outrage, which had occurred in Greenwich Park earlier that day: a bomb intended for the Greenwich Royal Observatory exploded prematurely and destroyed the bomber without inflicting any harm or property damage. The article says that Mr Verloc was the killed bomber.

After their encounter, the Professor crosses up with Chief Inspector Heat, a policeman who has just finished his investigation of the bombing scene.

Heat speaks with his superior, the Assistant Commissioner, after letting the Professor go, and discusses his previous contact with Mr Verloc. Affronted by what Heat has been hiding from him, the Assistant Commissioner protests to Sir Ethelred, the Home Secretary, about the peril of utilising covert agents like Mr Verloc. He makes his way to Mr Verloc’s shop after his meeting.

Mr Verloc has been taking long walks with Stevie ever since returning from his recent trip to Europe. Mrs Verloc is pleased to see her husband appearing to be taking care of the boy since she loves her brother, who is extremely sensitive and easily dedicated, as a mother would.

However, Mr Verloc, who was actually not killed in the bombing, returns home that day with a sickly appearance. Mrs Verloc finds out that Mr Verloc had supplied Stevie with a bomb for the Greenwich Observatory but that Stevie had tripped and let the bomb off early after visits from Mr Vladimir and Chief Inspector Heat.

Mrs Verloc is initially speechless with amazement, but eventually, her long-standing animosity towards her husband rises up, and she fatally stabs him. She goes to jump off a bridge because she is terrified of being hanged as a murderer. She encounters Ossipon while travelling and asks him to help her flee to the Continent.

Nevertheless, Ossipon abandons Mrs Verloc on a train to the port after discovering the deceased Mr Verloc at their house because he is so terrified and confused. Later, as the passenger ship crosses the English Channel, she hangs herself.

 The Secret Agent: Analysis

Joseph Conrad wrote a book titled The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale, which was first released in 1907. The plot takes place in London in 1886 and centres on Mr Adolf Verloc’s employment as a spy for an unspecified nation (presumably Russia). One of Conrad’s later political books, The Secret Agent, marks a departure from his earlier maritime stories.

The book, which is dedicated to H. G. Wells, covers terrorism, espionage, and anarchist in general. In Verloc’s interactions with his intellectually disabled brother-in-law Stevie, also addresses the exploitation of the weak. Conrad was inspired by Charles Dickens‘s Bleak House to paint a dark picture of London in the book. Conrad himself converted the book into a stage play, and it has since been adapted for film, television, radio, and opera.

It was one of the three literary works most frequently quoted in American media two weeks following the September 11 attacks because of its terrorist topic.

The French anarchist Martial Bourdin, who perished horribly when the explosives he was carrying exploded too soon, is the inspiration for Conrad’s character Stevie. Both Bourdin’s motivations and his intended victim, who may have been the Greenwich Observatory, are still unknown.

Theme of  The Secret Agent

Major themes in the novel include terrorism/anarchism, politics, and irony. Terrorism/Anarchism is a major theme and the driver of the plot of “The Secret Agent”

Theme Of terrorism/anarchism

Conrad himself adapted the book into a theatrical play, and it has since become an Anarchy was a hot topic when Conrad wrote The Secret Agent in 1906 as a result of high-profile murder attempts against leaders of state in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (such the shooting of U.S. President McKinley in 1901).

Although some anarchists (like The Professor in the book) engaged in violence, many others did not; anarchism was not a single political movement but rather a broad collection of beliefs centred on the rejection of authority. Adolf Verloc, a shopkeeper in London, doubles as a secret agent for a foreign embassy and an infiltrator of an anarchist organization in the book. The anarchists he hangs out with are useless and harmless.

However, Verloc is charged with planning a terrorist act that will link them in his capacity as a secret agent (this is meant to provoke the British people into fearing anarchism). After the bombing, it turns out that regular Londoners who are not at all involved in politics are the ones who suffer the most, not anarchists. Verloc suggests that political violence is pointless and ineffective because it destroys himself and his family rather than eliciting a public outcry.

Conrad makes the point that political violence is senselessly destructive and self-destructive through the self-destructive actions of secret agent Verloc on behalf of the foreign embassy. This is especially true for the common people that violent political movements pretend to support.

Politics

Politics play a major part in the book because Verloc, the protagonist, works for a group that leans politically. The F.P.’s revolutionary goals, the characters’ individual convictions, and Verloc’s own private life are just a few examples of how politics is present in the book. Conrad’s portrayal of anarchism has “enduring political relevance,” despite the fact that the terrorist implications of this are currently the main worry.

The F.P.’s discourses are expositions on the function of anarchism and how it relates to modern society. Chief Inspector Heat is familiar with F.P. members because of their anarchist beliefs; therefore the danger of these ideas is obvious. He is leaving for the country from the station. Michaelis must also inform the police station of his move to the country because the police closely monitor his behaviour.

The plan to demolish Greenwich is anarchistic in and of itself. The bombing “must be totally destructive,” according to Vladimir, and the anarchists who will be held responsible for planning the explosion “should make it apparent that [they] are perfectly prepared to make a clean sweep of the entire social creation.” he political anarchism in the book is eventually under control, though, as a covert government agency orchestrates the sole alleged political deed.

Irony

The Secret Agent has been lauded by critics as a masterpiece of sustained irony, a literary technique whereby the author wants his words to be received in a way that is in opposition to their apparent meaning. One well-known aspect of anarchism, for instance, was its opposition to the acquisition of private property (thus the anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon’s famous aphorism, “Property is theft”).

Verloc, however, is portrayed early on in the book as a defender of society’s affluent, propertied class. He has a lovely image of himself like this. However, Verloc is only indolent and hedonistic, lacking any genuine motivation from such lofty ideals.

Review

The Secret Agent is unquestionably the most difficult classic I’ve read this year. It is a timeless work that is philosophically up to date. It is a dark and melancholy story that can even be brutal at times, built on themes of espionage, double agents, government policies, politics, terrorism, and revolutionaries. The secret agent, his double life, and his unknowing family are at the centre of the narrative. The entire narrative revolves around them.

The story is told in a series of episodes, and each one did a good job of holding the reader’s attention. This episodic format occasionally led to misunderstandings, which made it difficult to comprehend the plot as a whole.

With the possible exception of the Chief Inspector and the Assistant commissioner of police, the characters were uninteresting to me and were cold and self-centred. However, even though I didn’t like them, I admired the author’s skilful psychological representations and character descriptions of the characters. I particularly liked how Mr Verloc, the secret spy, was portrayed psychologically and in terms of his character.

Brilliantly described are his attitude, the perilous lengths to which he was driven, his capacity to breach the trust so dearly given to him, and his willingness to sacrifice anyone in order to further his own interests and ensure his pay job. And it is depicted honestly and really how his actions ultimately affected his wife, her destruction, and the calamity that also befell them.

 The Secret Agent Adaptation

Television

• 1957, Canada, part of the Folioanthology series.
• 1957, UK, part of the ITV Play of the Weekanthology series.
• 1959, Canada, part of the Ford Startimeanthology series.
• 1967, UK BBC, in two episodes.
• 1975, UK BBC.
• 1981, France, L’agent secret, part of Le roman du samedi(The Saturday Novel) anthology series.
• 1992, UK BBC miniseriesin three episodes, starring David Suchet and Peter Capaldi.
• 2001, UK 50-minute adaptation aired on the short-lived TV channel BBC Knowledge.
• 2016, UK BBC miniseriesin three episodes, starring Toby Jones and Vicky McClure.

Film

• 1936, UK, retitled Sabotage, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Oscar Homolka, Sylvia Sidneyand John Loder. This version departs considerably from the novel.^[4]
• 1996, UK filmstarring Bob Hoskins, Patricia Arquette, Gérard Depardieu, Robin Williams and Christian Bale.

Radio

• 1951 adapted by Felix Feltonand produced by Frank Hauser.
• 1953 adapted by Felix Felton and produced by Martyn C. Webster. Part of the Saturday Night Theatre
• 1967, in two episodes, adapted by Alexander Baronand produced by David Conroy.
• 1975, in two episodes, produced by Rosemary Hill.
• 1978, in 14 episodes, abridged and read by Gavin Campbell. Part of the Book at Bedtime
• 1984, in 14 episodes, abridged by Jacek Laskowski and directed by Richard Imison.
• 2006, in two episodes, abridged by David Napthine, produced and directed by Jessica Dromgoole. Part of the Classic Serial

Audible audiobooks have produced at least 13 different unabridged readings of the novel, including in French, German and Spanish.

Opera

Conrad’s novel has been adapted as operas by Simon Wills (2006), Michael Dellaira (2011), and Allen Reichman and Curtis Bryant (2013).