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ornamental line

Thinking in Pictures

"She remembered now what she had heard,
and she remembered it pictorially" (191).
Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent (1907)

 

Points for Reflection

J. Conrad's The Secret Agent (1907), chps 9-11

  1. does Stevie's disability make him ridiculous?
  2. whenever he hears of others' pain, Stevie grows angry and wants to punish those responsible--sometimes physically. Why does his frustration manifest itself in rage, and why does this rage lead to belligerence? Is this a product of his upbringing, his intellectual disability, or something else?
  3. why might Stevie be growing more consistently anxious and brooding once his walks with Mr Verloc have become a regular habit?
  4. does the narrator suggest in chapter nine that Stevie understands pretty well what Verloc desires of him?
  5. are Verloc's teeth rattling upon his return home because he's been out in the cold (140)?
  6. what is the "way" Winnie knows of smoothing things over with Verloc (144)?
  7. in chapter nine, the reader adopts Winnie's ownperspective as she listens to Chief Inspector Heat's questions and as she, soon thereafter, overhears Heat's conversation with Mr Verloc. How does the reader's new vantage point shape the impact of these two men's words? Does it change our emotional reaction to what they are saying?
  8. consider the symbolic significance of the vivid image rendered in the last sentence of chapter nine.
  9. let us make bold and assume that Conrad applied his ideas to his work. In the Preface to the novel The Nigger of the 'Narcissus', Conrad suggests that art is an attempt to discover in life that which is "fundamental," "enduring," and "essential." Presumably, the "truth of life" can be captured and conveyed in the art of literature. What social and/or psychological truths does Conrad appear determined to illuminate in The Secret Agent thus far?
  10. does the novel's sudden return to a comic tone in the beginning of chapter ten jolt the reader--does it seem inappropriate given the contents of the previous chapter, or in keeping with the novel's tonal complexity?
  11. after hearing the Assistant Commissioner's tale concerning Verloc, Vladimir, and Stevie, Sir Ethelred responds with "'All this seems very fantastic'" (161). The Assistant Commissioner muses that Verloc may have taken seriously what Vladimir meant to be an empty, exaggerated threat (160-61). Does all this seem equally incredible to you, the reader? Or, does the plot of this tale feel quite plausible?
  12. the Assistant Commissioner suggests that "we" are, from a certain point of view, "in the presence of a domestic drama" (163). Does the novel indeed feel more like a domestic drama than a thriller or political actioner?
  13. why does Vladimir's estimation of the London police change so rapidly?
  14. does Verloc feel pity or sympathy for his wife? Consider the different denotations separating these two terms.
  15. as suggested by chapter eleven, how much information about his mission did Verloc end up giving to Stevie?
  16. does the narrator make Verloc into a sympathetic or unsympathetic figure in chapter eleven? Do his various qualities cancel one another out, so that we're not sure how to feel about him?
  17. look over chp. 11 and note places where the tone shifts, as well as spots where voice changes. Search for moments of free indirect discourse, judgment by the narrator, sarcasm, seriousness, tragedy, comedy, etc. Shape an argument concerning the impact or purpose of these shifts.


H.D.'s "Sea Poppies" (1916)

  1. to whom is this poem addressed?
  2. why describe as "fruit" (l.3) something inedible?
  3. to what might "grain" (l.4) refer?
  4. do you imagine the bleaching process identified by H.D. (l.7) as degrading the flower, beautifying it, or merely changing it?
  5. does "wide-spread" (l.13) here signal general ubiquity, or ground coverage in a particular location?
  6. H.D. celebrates these flowers for both their appearance and scent. Is one attribute easier to describe in words?


a painting of a man sitting in the shade beneath a tree at the bank of a calm river on the left side of the scene. he is looking across the river to see a distant town, and there is a small row boat in the water at the bottom of the image.
On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt (1868)
Claude Monet


Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu