I
DON’T HAVE the
grade for this short essay (below), just as I'm not about to, in any way, grade or degrade the above
poems (some of which are old and some are new, some are borrowed, some are blue.) But,
I’m sure the essay must be worth at least an “A+”. It's a light 'go through' on
narration and narrative perspectives that points the way, a bit, for the
reader as they delve into weightier and more meaty meals.
Bon appétit, Jake.
In-Class Essay: Discuss in Relation to the Work as a Whole—The Narrator in Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent
Nineteenth Century novels were often concerned with the structure and organization of society, and the narrator was seen more as an ‘interpreter’ of events, a presenter of character and story; as someone who explained the process but did not question it. Society was assumed to function within certain organizing structures: Nineteenth Century English society, for example, had its obvious social classes and colonial/expansionist framework; that was considered a given. Fictional narrators of novels examined their society but did so from a comfortable ‘armchair’ stance. They acted as authorities, but they acquired their authority from the mores and conventions of their society.
A particular type of character, or a certain way of acting, a form of address and so on, all had guides and formulations (prescriptive and proscriptive) for the accepted ways of doing things that the narrators of novels of the time, for the most part, 'agreed with'. The narrators often shared the perspectives of the privileged classes. In this sense, Nineteenth Century narrators had a more restricted role. One sees them, for example, entering the consciousness of a character in an omniscient manner, but doing so under prescribed conditions: A person thought, generally, the way he was ‘supposed to’ think, given the social conventions of the time. An expression of piety, for instance, meant that this was a pious person with pious thoughts, and that was the end of discussion.
I also see the role of this earlier narrator as more of a chronicler, a presenter of a story. It is as if a movie is playing and the narrator acts as ‘usher’ to guide the reader to a particular seat, to have a particular vantage of the movie. Another sense I have, and one that is completely at odds with the narrator of Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent, is that pre-modern narration was ‘non-interactive’: The relationship the narrator had with the reader was that of the polite host, a host who is conscious of certain proprieties, certain things that cannot be discussed, and a certain pace— not too slow or too fast. My point is that the narrator, in many instances very present in earlier novels, nevertheless does not engage with the reader. There is no debate between them or points of disagreement .The reader is there to witness the story. The narrator is there to explain it.
ON THE OTHER HAND, in The Secret Agent, a modern novel published in 1907, the narrator is not such a comfortable or necessarily helpful presence. And one of the difficulties in reading Joseph Conrad’s complex tale is the strident, uncompromising, and unashamedly critical voice of the narrator. When reading the story, there is an uneasy sense that, in the next paragraph, the narrator will ‘explode’ in a pointedly critical examination of the reader! In a practical sense, of course, this stance taken by Conrad in the development of his narrative voice is to ensure that the reader makes no mistake what-so-ever in identifying with, or becoming sympathetic toward, any of the characters in the novel, (with the possible exception of Stevie—who is dead anyway). In this manner, Conrad ensures the sense of isolation is complete: He wishes to depict characters isolated from each other and from society. His use of other narrative techniques, for example time ‘standing still’; or of movement (the circling motions of the characters); or the focus on the inanimate, all act to depict in the novel a private, inward emptiness at the heart of all the characters. If the narrator had instead provided a positive appraisal of some character or revealed information suggesting ‘connectedness’ or empathy in the novel, this would compromise Conrad’s intent.
Conrad’s narration in The Secret Agent provides what we have come to see as the modern perspective: at times acting omnisciently—going inside the mind of Verloc, for example, or detailing the emotions of his characters—the narrator also ‘pulls away’ from some descriptions, as if lacking knowledge of the events or was incapable of rendering them. The image of the cart seen indistinctly at a distance, crossing the square comes to mind. Similarly, instead of revealing a thought or emotion, Conrad's narrator chooses to focus on the ‘bits and pieces’ of a character or a setting: Verloc’s hand “twitching”, the knife, and the famous hat from the parlour scene are examples of this fragmentation of the narrative viewpoint. By doing so, by going from an omniscient to a minute perspective, the reader is reminded of the fragments, the bits of Stevie’s body blown up by the bomb, and once more of the separateness and lack of connection that Conrad envisions for the characters of his novel.
In summary, the narrator moves from a perspective which is akin to the readers, a shared consensus in the pre-modern novel, to a modern one, one that is as fluctuating and imprecise as the shifting consciousness and perspectives of the novel's characters. And, of course, this perspective is one that also mirrors the modern consciousness of the readers as well.
Works Cited
Conrad, Joseph, The Secret Agent. Penguin Books, N.Y., 1986
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