Spies Literary Elements

Bildungsroman

The action takes place in Great Britain during the Second World War.

The story is told from Stephen’s perspective. However, the narrative technique used is peculiar because the Older Stephen is almost as an outside characters looking into the life of his younger self. Thus, he recalls the events his younger self experienced from a third-person almost objective perspective.

Childlike, tragic, fearful

The protagonist is Stephen and the antagonist is Keith’s mother, whom the boys suspect of being a German spy.

The major conflict is between Stephen’s and Keith’s desire to find whether Keith’s mother is a spy and their own fears and insecurities.

The story reaches its climax when Stephen finds the identity of the mysterious man in the Barns.

In one of the chapters in the beginning, Stephen’s father asks his son if the was being called names at the school. The name mentioned by Stephen’s father is a racial anti-Semitic slur used by the British population in relation with the Jews. The mentioning of the slur foreshadows Stephen’s true identity.

When Stephen claims that Keith’s father is better than his own is an understatement as it is later revealed that he is a tyrant who abuses his child and wife.

One of the things alluded in the second chapter is that the narrator changed his name. This element is alluded when Stephen reveals his true name in the second chapter. This also makes the reader understand that the name will be important in the later chapters and that it has an important role in the character’s life.

An important imagery appears towards the end of the novel when Stephen sees the man from the hospital taking Pete’s body away from the train tracks. It is implied that Pete killed himself by jumping in front of the train and the ambulance workers had to gather the bits and pieces scattered everywhere by the train. The image is important because it is in that moment when Stephen realizes just how cruel the war is and how much a person can be affected by it.

One of the paradoxical ideas that appears in the novel is the fact that many see Stephen as being the one who influences Keith. This idea makes Stephen feel strange because in their friendship, he sees himself as being the submissive one and Keith as being the leader.

N/A

Keith uses the term ‘’the Juice’’ often in the novel, and it becomes clear that he uses it in a general way to make refer to the Jews who moved into their neighborhoods and who were hiding among the general British population.

In the second chapter, when Stephen describes his belt buckle, he describes it as having a “delicious silvery serrated texture”.