The paper examines Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent as an assault on the ideological structures of capitalism and bourgeoisie. The study argues that the decay and corruption that define the world of the novel are not personal or moral but are materially produced by the contradictions of late capitalist society. Most readings of the novel have focused on Verloc's failure as a man, the absurdity of the anarchists, or the tragedy of Winnie Verloc. These readings do not provide an understanding of the material and ideological conditions that generate the moral and psychological dilemmas the characters face. This study has raised three questions: How does The Secret Agent represent capitalist economic structures shaping and distorting human relations? How does the novel’s vision of decay reveal the ideological contradictions generated by bourgeois society? Why does the novel portray capitalism as self-destructive? Hence, the Neo-Marxist approach is used as an analytical tool. The main theorists examined in this study are Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser and Theodor Adorno. Gramsci reveals that the bourgeois authority is maintained through the cultural hegemony rather than through the brute force (Gramsci 12). Althusser reflects on the role of ideological state apparatuses in shaping consciousness (Althusser 85). Adorno exposes how bourgeois culture generates its own negation (Adorno 98). The textual analysis of the novel shows that Verloc’s dedication to the bourgeois values of comfort, security and respectability makes him a figure of compromised consciousness. The anarchists, despite all their revolutionary talk, are shown to be the product of the system which they profess to oppose. Winnie Verloc’s tragedy illustrates how capitalism reduces human relations to economic transactions. In conclusion, Conrad’s portrayal of capitalism is that of a self-destructive system, resulting in decay and the impossibility of authentic human connection
- Quote paper
- Nirmal Gurung (Author), 2026, Bourgeois Decay and Capitalist Collapse. A Neo-Marxist Reading of Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Agent", Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.hausarbeiten.de/document/1745260
