Exploitation and terrorism in Conrad's The Secret Agent

The Secret Agent is marked as one of Joseph Conrad's later political novels, which diverge from his distinctive stories of sea and life on ships. The novel, on one level, deals with the notions of anarchism, espionage, and terrorism; on the other level, it is about manipulation, exploitation and how humans become barbaric in the modern society. Besides, the novel depicts anarchist or revolutionary groups before some of the social uprisings that took place in the earlier twentieth century. The actions of the novel are set towards the end of the Victorian period. The novel reflects the social reality of London towards the end of the nineteenth century, when there were many real explosions which the press and the politicians considered as the anarchists' outrages. Through analyzing how these events are reflected in Conrad's The Secret Agent, this study aims to explore how more important than political conflicts for Conrad are the dehumanizing effects of involvement in violence on individuals and individual relationships. Keywords: Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent, Exploitation, Terrorism, Anarchists, Dehumanization, Isolation.