Previous
Similes
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—England Lags:
In Mr. Vladimir's early dialogue with Verloc, Conrad weaves together personification and situational irony. As he harangues Verloc about the need to “shake things up,” Mr. Vladimir expounds:
“England lags. This country is absurd with its sentimental regard for individual liberty. [...] England must be brought into line. [...] I suppose you agree that the middle classes are stupid?’
Mr. Verloc agreed hoarsely.
‘They are.’
‘They have no imagination. They are blinded by an idiotic vanity. What they want just now is a jolly good scare.”
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Protections:
As Verloc walks around London, Conrad leverages situational and verbal irony to juxtapose his idealistic vision of “opulence and luxury” with the reality of the city's corruption. As Verloc strolls along the streets on his way to the Russian embassy, the narrator tells readers that:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He surveyed through the park railings the evidences of the town’s opulence and luxury with an approving eye. All these people had to be protected. Protection is the first necessity of opulence and luxury. They had to be protected; and their horses, carriages, houses, servants had to be protected; and the source of their wealth had to be protected in the heart of the city and the heart of the country; the whole social order favorable to their hygienic idleness had to be protected against the shallow enviousness of unhygienic labour.
Related Themes:
Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Like Being In Prison:
Conrad utilizes both visual imagery invoking prison and situational irony to depict Michaelis's complicated feelings about writing his Autobiography of a Prisoner. Having retreated to the countryside, Michaelis holes himself up with his work:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It was like being in prison, except that one was never disturbed for the odious purpose of taking exercise according to the tyrannical regulations of his old home in the penitentiary. He could not tell whether the sun still shone on the earth or not. The perspiration of the literary labour dropped from his brow. A delightful enthusiasm urged him on.
Related Themes:
Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Orange Peel:
Mr. Verloc thinks about how unlucky it was that Winnie sewed Stevie's address into his coat, which is the evidence that identifies it to the police when he’s killed. Conrad emphasizes the situational irony of the mishap with an explanatory simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The position was gone through no one’s fault really. A small, tiny fact had done it. It was like slipping on a bit of orange peel in the dark and breaking your leg.
Related Themes:
Chapter 13
Explanation and Analysis—Leather Yoke:
By the end of the novel, Ossipon is a shadow of his former self, abandoning his once fiery revolutionary convictions. Conrad uses situational irony and the idiom of the "sandwich board" to portray Ossipon's fall from revolutionary grace and his bleak prospects. Despondent and lost, Ossipon expresses his grim outlook:
Unlock with LitCharts A+‘I am seriously ill,’ he muttered to himself with scientific insight. Already his robust form, with an Embassy’s secret-service money (inherited from Mr. Verloc) in his pockets, was marching in the gutter as if in training for the task of an inevitable future. Already he bowed his broad shoulders, his head of ambrosial locks, as if ready to receive the leather yoke of the sandwich board.
Related Themes:
