Character Clues

Character Analysis

Actions

The most important actions belong to Verloc, who basically kicks off all the events of the book. He decides to do what Mr. Vladimir has told him to do—plant a bomb at the Greenwich Observatory in order to save himself from a life of regular hard work. This willingness shows his desperation to protect his life of laziness at all costs. Also, the fact that he gets Stevie to plant the bomb for him suggests just how much of a monster he actually is.

In addition, Winnie's decision to marry Verloc in order to support her family reveals her self-sacrificing nature in a very stark way. Oh yeah, and her decision to stab her husband shows her grief, desperation, and anger.

Direct Characterization

Conrad's narrator constantly gives us summations of certain people's character. Sometimes this summation will involve a back story (as with the Professor), but quite often the narrator just slings adjectives and descriptions at us to tell us what his characters are like. For example, the narrator directly tells us in Chapter Two that Verloc "(is) too lazy even for a mere demagogue, for a workman orator, for a leader of labour. It was too much trouble. He required a more perfect form of ease" (2.1). This direct characterization was a pretty common practice during Conrad's time. Since the age of film, though, the writing rule of thumb has been to show what a character is like through actions rather than tell via direct characterization.

Family Life

The dynamics of the Verloc household tells you a lot. First, it tells you that Verloc is an agreeable enough man to take care of Winnie, her mother, and her brother. This is part of Verloc's generosity, but also part of his iffy observational skills. When Stevie enters his life, Verloc almost seems surprised to see the boy, since he's so used to simply ignoring him. Winnie and her mother have basically done everything they can to ensure that Stevie is as invisible as possible to Verloc, and that he never does anything to bother Verloc. This reflects their devotion to the boy, revealing that Winnie and her mother are very devoted mother figures.

Names

What's in a name?  A lot, if you're reading The Secret Agent. "Stevie" conveys the innocent boyishness of his character. Adolph Verloc conveys general austerity and aloofness, as well as his non-English background (and, to everyone reading The Secret Agent post-Hitler, the fact that he's up to no good). The Assistant Commissioner and Winnie's mother are never given proper names at all, which suggests that their occupations make them impersonal placeholders. The Professor is a nickname for a little psychopath who doesn't seem human enough to have an actual name of his own… he just wouldn't be as intimidating if he were named Dwayne or Bob.

Occupation

Verloc is both a secret agent and a purveyor of unseemly sexual products. The fact that his store is so openly immoral almost seems like a slap in the face to Conrad's repressed turn-of-the-century British readers. The fact that this shop is also attached to the Verlocs house helps to convey the lack of boundaries between Mr. Verlocs work and private life.

The shop also serves to give him some privacy when he invites some of his anarchists "friends" over. Sitting at a counter all day, or sitting on his couch all night listening to anarchists, Verloc's jobs tend to be really pretty easy-peasy, and this goes back to the narrator's efforts to characterize him as a very lazy or "indolent" man.

Physical Appearances

Apart from direct characterization, almost nothing in this book that characterizes people more than their physical appearances. Conrad almost seems to get carried away at times when describing people, whether its the fat bodies of Verloc, Michaelis, or Sir Ethelred, or the skinny, fragile bodies of Karl Yundt or the Professor.

Physical ugliness is rampant throughout this novel, and it always seems to be connected to some inner failing in the individual it describes. It is also part of Conrad's emotional distance from his characters. His physical descriptions always remind us that he is objectifying his characters. Particularly in the cases of Yundt, the Professor, and Ethelred, their physical descriptions seem to actually overtake any inner lives they may have to show us. For a more in-depth discussion of physical appearances, check out the Themes section.