Abstract
This chapter will examine Conrad’s anarchist critique of capitalism in The Secret Agent through the rhetoric of vegetarianism, meat eating and metaphorical cannibalism. In considering the symbolic meaning of the natural diet I will look at the opposing forces of anarchy and capitalism within the context of Promethean mythology, employing the analogy of the raw and the cooked. In addition, I will juxtapose the political implications of meat eating from a Romantic perspective against those ironically portrayed in The Secret Agent.
Good cooking is a moral agent. By good cooking I mean the conscientious preparation of the simple food of every-day life, not the more or less skilful concoction of idle feasts and rare dishes.
(‘Preface’ to A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House 1923, p. v).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Barry, J., and J. Melling. 1992. Culture in History: Production, Consumption and Values in Historical Perspective. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
Beddoes, Thomas. 2004. Hygeia: Essays Moral and Medical, vol. 1. London: Thoemmes Continuum.
Bevir, Mark. 1996. The Rise of Ethical Anarchism 1885–1900. Berkeley: Postprints.
Bradshaw, Penny. 2004. The Politics of the Platter: Charlotte Smith and “The Science of Eating”. In Cultures of Taste/Theories of Appetite: Eating Romanticism, ed. Timothy Morton. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Conrad, Jessie. 1923. A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House. London: Woods & Sons.
Conrad, Jessie. 1926. Joseph Conrad As I Knew Him. London: Jarrolds
Fraser, W. Hamish. 1981. The Coming of the Mass Market, 1850-1914. London: Macmillan.
Jones, G. 1979. Multinationals & Global Capitalism from the Nineteenth. In Joseph Conrad: The Three Lives, ed. Frederick R. Karl. London: Faber & Faber.
Karl, Frederick R. and Davies, L. 1983. The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad, Volume 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Keating, George T. 1929. A Conrad Memorial Library: The Collection of George T. Keating. New York: Doubleday, Doran.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1964a/1971. Mythologiques, 4 Vols. Paris: Plon.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1964b/1983. The Raw and the Cooked. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Lumley, F. 1933. The Propaganda Menace. New York: Century.
Morris, N., and D.J. Rothman. 1998. The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society. New York: Oxford University Press.
Morton, Tim. 1994. Shelley and The Revolution in Taste. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Newman, G. 1904. The Control of the Milk Supply, first published by British Medical Association, Strand.
Oddy, Derek J. 2003. From Plain Fare to Fusion Food: British Diet from the 1890s to the 1990s. Rochester, NY: Boydell Press.
Orr, L., and T. Billy. 1999. A Joseph Conrad Companion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Ritson, Joseph. 1802. An Essay on Abstinence from Animal Food as a Moral Duty. London: Wilks & Taylor.
Salt, Henry. 1892. Shelley’s Principles. London: William Reeves.
Sheehy Skeffington, F. 1908. Michael Davitt: Revolutionary Agitator and Labour Leader. London: T. Fisher Unwin.
Shelley, Mary. 2003. Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus. London: Penguin.
Shelley, P.B. 1813/1922. A Vindication of Natural Diet. London: The C.W. Daniel Company Ltd.
Sinclair, Upton. 1906a/1985. The Jungle. London: Penguin.
Sinclair, Upton. 1906b/1988. The Jungle. Introduction and Notes by James R. Barrett. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Stape, J.H. 2007. The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad. London: Heinemann.
Stevens, Ray. 1999. Spots of Time, Literary Reminiscences, and Biographical Mysteries. In A Joseph Conrad Companion, ed. Ted Billy and Leonard Orr. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Swabe, Joanna. 1999. Animals, Disease, and Human Society: Human-Animal Relations and the Rise of Veterinary Medicine. London: Routledge.
Tanner, Tony. 1976. “Gnawed Bones” And “Artless Tales”—Eating and Narrative in Conrad. In Joseph Conrad: A Commemoration, ed. Norman Sherry. London: Unwin Brothers.
Taylor, Thomas. 1792/1966. A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes. Scholars’ Facsimile & Reprints.
Trotter, T. 1810. An Essay, Medical, Philosophical, and Chemical, on Drunkenness, and Its Effects on the Human Body. London: Longman, Hurst, Kees and Orme.
Twigg, Julia. 1981. The Vegetarian Movement in England, 1847–1981: With Particular Reference to its Ideology. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of London. www.ivu.org/history/thesis/why.html.
Weir, David. 1997. Anarchy and Culture: The Aesthetic Politics of Modernism. Amherst, MA: Massachusetts Press.
Wilson, Robert. 1987. Conrad’s Mythology. New York: Whiston.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Salmons, K. (2017). Anarchy, Vegetarianism and The Secret Agent . In: Food in the Novels of Joseph Conrad. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56623-8_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56623-8_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-56622-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-56623-8
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)