After finishing Joseph Conrad's masterwork The Secret Agent, I was blown away by the ending and was left with many questions. One of them was whether Verloc deserved the reader's sympathy or not. I can see both sides of this question and am unsure which opinion to take.
On the one hand, Verloc did not mean for his brother-in-law to die during the Greenwich job and one could clearly see that he wished he had never accepted the task. He seemed to be a victim of circumstances that he could not control. For example, Verloc could not force Stevie to simply plant the bomb and get out of the observatory because Stevie was mentally disabled. This is not to say that Stevie's death was his own fault. It could have been an accident. The text did say that Stevie tripped and the bomb detonated. After the bombing, the Professor, the one who supplied the explosives, told the Chief Inspector that there was plenty of time on the bomb before it would blow up. The fact that Stevie could not be easily told what to do by Verloc could have been the reason the job failed. With this in mind, one may conclude that Verloc was innocent and should not have been knifed by his wife.
On the other hand, it is possible that Verloc should not be pitied by the reader. While he was clearly a victim of circumstances in terms of the Greenwich accident, he has been labeled a lazy bum and a liar. This should be self-evident since he is a secret agent in the employ of the embassy. Interestingly enough, his employer, Mr. Vladimir, told him that he was not doing enough to keep his job. With this kind of a character trait, one could reason that Verloc lacks the vigor and energy to be a noble person. Thus he is not a hero and should not be admired by the reader. As for being deceptive, that is a significant part of Verloc's job. All those in the field of espionage must be good liars. Therefore, from a hindsight perspective it is not surprising that Winnie Verloc knows nothing of her husband's true occupation and the whereabouts of her brother on the day of the Greenwich bombing. He lied to her face by saying that he took Stevie to live out in the country in the care of Michaelis, a friends of the Verlocs. One can go as far as saying that justice was done to Verloc when he payed for his ways with his life.
I am not sure whether to pity Adolf Verloc or to dislike him. He is not a tragic hero, but he did endure a reversal of fortune which ended with his death and his killer's death. If anyone wishes to take sides, comment on this post with your answer and why.
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