seriously. free macbook, please?

Nothing but a Pawn

A man is only human when he allows himself weakness. In the novel “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” by John Le Carré, it depicts the tale of a man turned to stone through the workings of espionage and how he grants himself that weakness. When finally presented with an opportunity to give into someone on an intimate level, this weakness is used against him and he becomes victim to the system in which he serves. Through out this book, you discover how a man can lose sight of what he is fighting for in a game where those in charge have nothing to lose but casualties.

This idea is significantly present in one of his many conversations with Fielder. When he finally subconsciously understands his fate in his workings and how he will be the one to take the fall, he doesn’t initially accept it. Through that, he begins to explore the details around him and sees the children riding in the back of the car innocently smiling with the worried adult driver in the front. By imagining these children’s death so instinctively and casually, he is channeling his personal concerns of his own downfall and doom. This also is foreshadowing his own ending as it is becoming obvious that the team he is playing for might not necessarily be doing the right thing.

All the parts came together when Leamas began to share the truth with Liz about Mundt being a British spy and how Leamas was going to be the sacrifice. After all this time, he realized that Fiedler had been waiting for the inevitable bond between Liz and Leamas to become the man’s downfall, that in admitting so, he had not only sealed his fate in knowing too much but had dragged down his only true accomplice in the process.

When Leamas and Liz attempt their escape over the Wall, shots are fired and Liz collapses and appears dead. As Leamas sits on the wall for a moment deciding where to go, this is when his character is at a crossing point. “Sacrificing an individual for the masses” is the reality that he has been aware of while working as a spy. However, he had never seen it when he is in fact the weakest link. Seeing the sweet and naïve Liz dead much like the children that he daydreamed about, he realized he was the driver. He became the force that ended the most important bond to him in a game where lives lost were nothing but a number. So in that moment, instead of hopping over that Wall and continuing the game until he would be caught again, he took responsibility and willingly accepted his defeat.

In the end, Leamas accepts that he is nothing more than a piece of a much larger machine and accepts his vulnerability and inferiority that can come with that title. Through out the last moments of his life, displaying the constant game of tug-of-war with morals and wants, we see him finally let go and give into something he has been trying to forget: that he is only human.