아이러니의 서사 전략과 공감의 문제: 조셉 콘라드의 『비밀 요원』을 중심으로

Reading Irony and the Problem of Sympathy in Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent

This paper examines irony in Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent as a narrative strategy that critiques a morally insensible society and challenges readers to critically reflect on their engagement with distance and sympathy. Beyond functioning as a rhetorical device, the novel’s irony conveys a skeptical recognition of a modern era where moral values and life’s meaning are obscured. The paper analyzes the self-reflective nature of the narrator’s irony, which exposes the narrator’s own limitations despite his omniscient position. By fluidly oscillating between sympathy and contempt for the characters, the narrator maintains a detached stance, encouraging readers to withhold emotional bias and approach the characters with critical distance. The paper explores sympathy as the novel’s central theme, embodied in the character Stevie, whose sacrifice in place of Greenwich underscores society’s indifference to “pity and fear.” Conrad critiques a world insensitive to others’ pain while using Stevie’s tragedy to remind readers of the necessary distance required for sympathy—a distance Stevie himself lacks. Irony further reveals the painful process undergone by characters blinded by the false normality of their lives but who ironically become awakened in “madness and despair.” Winnie’s descent into madness serves as a resistance to social norms, dismantling Verloc’s immoral world and haunting Ossipon with an awakening to uncomfortable truths, symbolizing Conrad’s aim “to make you see.” This paper argues that the unique role of irony as an artistic device in the novel underscores the necessity of emotional education through literature.