Resistance against the Subjugation of Woman in Conrad's The Secret Agent

Abstract

Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent provokes the quest for women’s independent identity in the newly built London frontier society. This very poignant project ‘Resistance against the subjugation of woman’ particularly accentuates the issue of the subordination of a woman by the patriarchy. It also portrays women’s quest for freedom and autonomy which is possible but not so easy. The act of the latent sense of woman’s resistance against patriarchy is expressed in the form of murder. The brutal act of murder can be clearly justified by willingness to fight off subjugation and subordination and the like. The novel The Secret Agent apparently reveals how feminist resistance against patriarchal insensitivity and domination can take the form of violence, bloodshed and murder.