Anarchic Appetites: Vegetarianism and The Secret Agent’.

The focus of this paper is Joseph Conrad's critique of capitalism in The Secret Agent through the rhetoric of vegetarianism. By taking the association between anarchy and vegetarianism in the writings of Percy Bysshe Shelley and considering the symbolic meaning of the "natural" diet, it is possible to locate the opposing forces of anarchy and capitalism within the context of Promethean mythology, employing the analogy of the raw and the cooked. In addition, the political implications of meat-eating as defined by the Romantics can be juxtaposed with Conrad's ironic portrayal of carnivorous appetites in The Secret Agent.