Women in Conrad’s fiction : the story of Winnie Verloc

Joseph Conrad’s novel entitled The Secret Agent has three main thematic threads: those of social convention, psychology and politics. Against this background, we follow the story of Winnie Verloc’s humdrum existence, which is conditioned by the low social status of her family, the sense of alienation and distance that exists between herself and her husband, her own inborn psychological traits and her position as a woman, who - like other women at that time - had no say in important matters and was excluded from many areas of public life. Shocked by the tragic death of her beloved brother - which, to make matters worse, has been caused by her own husband - she kills the latter and - after suff ering a nervous breakdown - takes her own life. Winnie Verloc’s story has been variously interpreted by literary critics, who diff er particularly in their assessment of her motives for murdering her husband (B. Harrington, B. Soane), linking it with a critique of the hypocrisy of the bourgeois world and also of the big city, which is seen as a source of moral degradation. Her story is also sometimes interpreted in a ‘domestic’ colonial context (B. Soane) and through the optic of the status of Woman as the Other, who is deprived of her rights and dignity. Her life is also interpreted in terms of betrayal (W. Heimer) and the futility of her devotion to her brother, her fate being the epitome of lone sacrifi ce. Worthy of note is an attempt to look at Winnie from the point of view of her husband, together with a negative assessment of the fact that she married Verloc purely in order to safeguard her brother’s future (P. Dolan). W. Tillyard for his part wonders whether Winnie is a tragic figure. In conclusion, we may say that on a social plane, Winnie’s fate appears to be a consequence of the disintegration of the bourgeois world, while on a psychological plane it can be seen as a consequence of personal traits of character or inborn predispositions. On a political plane, Winnie’s story can be viewed through the optic of movements for the emancipation of women, as well as her unwitting involvement in a complicated political game.