Issues Of Moral Ambiguity, Compromise And Uncertainty In Espionage Literature.

To be morally ambiguous is to either maintain unclear morals, or to shift moral code to suit changing needs, and this is undeniably a foundation of espionage fiction in the Post-war and Cold War period. Fleming`s seminal novel Casino Royale creates from these issues the famous heroic figure of James Bond, whereas ten years later, Le Carré`s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold emphasises the negative impact this unsure and compromising morality can have through the unromanticised protagonist Leamus. These fictional imaginings into the minds and lives of Secret State practitioners are compounded by the reality of Secret State activities. One key place these moral ambiguities lay in a gender-specific sphere of reference, emphasising male concerns, both personal and national. Overwhelmingly male protagonists, a preoccupation with national image in the face of fading Empires, and a professionalisation of glamourised coldness all contribute to reflect the moral ambiguity of men`s changing place in the world.

The critic Umberto Eco`s structural approach in his 1969 essay "Narrative structures in Fleming", compares Casino Royale`s narrative with that of a chess match, focusing on alternating moves between two differing "sides". This emphasis on diametric oppositions assumes a Manichian paradigm, which is furthered in the novel by Bond`s own placing of himself as the symbol of goodness in his assertion that le Chiffre "was creating a norm of badness by which, and by which alone, an opposite norm of goodness could exist" (172). The narrative form and established genre itself encourage distrust in the reader and heightens the presence of moral ambiguity. By focusing on a profession which is based around deception, conscious and active reading of the texts is natural, and paranoia encourages small aspects of characters or events to seem vital. In The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, for example, Chapter Two `The Circus` begins with block paragraphs of exposition and explanation about Leamus and Mundt. The third person narration uses Leamus as a conduit through which it can express his views without losing the seeming omniscience it possesses, as facts are prefaced with "Leamus knew" (13). The contradictions in Leamus` character compound this suspision; Control describes Mundt as "A practitioner of the Cold War." "Like us," Leamus observed drily. Control didn`t smile." (21) establishing Leamus as focused and independent enough to understand the reality of the situation. Conversely, Leamus retains a wilful ignorance of much of his work, describing Control`s talk beyond simply mission details as "a lot of drivel" (19).

In contrast, Chapter Three `Decline` gives little indication of Leamus inner life; when the patrons of the pub he frequents feel "They were beginning to know Leamus there" (27), the reader is asked to question whether they really do know him at all, whether his drunken behaviour is one facet of his self, or indeed if it is just a deliberate persona he inhabits. Facts and opinion about Leamus character in this chapter are inextricably merged to form a veil of doubt over any information disclosed. Phrases such as "a few people wondered" (26) and "they said" (23) while describing a mix of Control`s constructed lies and Leamus` known history, demonstrate early in the novel how even those within the Service can be manipulated, and how easily misinformation and rumour can spread. The use of free indirect discourse to give a voice to the unnamed "they" in lines such as "it was bad luck about his pension, decidedly bad luck" (23), emphasises the ambiguous nature of even ostensibly objective narrative.

Although the overall genre and structure of the novels exacerbates the sense of uncertainty for a reader, the themes and motifs within them are more direct forces of gendered moral ambiguity. The double standard of sexual women as powerless objects and sexual men as powerful aggressors informs Casino Royale as a dramatisation of male fantasy, allowing Bond to be both daring lothario and romantic lover. A contemporary view of Bond establishes his place in a sexually evolving historical moment by intertwining sexuality and immorality; Lieutenant-Colonel Bernard Watson wrote in the Salvation Army published journal in 1966 "Bond threatens to upset road safety by his mania for pursuing women in cars at preposterous speed, a mania which the immature reader is quick to imitate" (15-16). Comparatively, the year Casino Royale was first publish, Playboy magazine was established in Chicago was the first edition sold out in just weeks, distributing 54,175 copies. The view of Bond as "both exciting and extremely civilized" (249) in issue of the Times Literary Supplement from 1953, seems to emphasises the general contemporary view of Bond`s activities outside his career, namely his sexuality, as unproblematic. Indeed, there are moments when private and public life are figuratively mixed; when Bond enters his hotel room and finds the "safe, empty room sneered at him" (8) and he "threw his gun" so casually, Fleming creates an eroticism based on the masculine phallic images of the gun and the bed. This eroticism is without female presence, and becomes a self-reflecting desire for male power, heightened by the lure of financial power from the casino.

James Chapman insists that the Bond series was "written for...total stimulation of the reader, encouraging the reader to share by proxy in Bond`s sexual encounters and expensive lifestyle" (37), arguably stressing the idea that the targeted readership was male and that they were actively encouraged to use the portrayal of both genders as a heightened and idealised fantasy. Fleming`s own assertion that "The target of my books...lay somewhere between the solar plexus and , well, the upper thigh" (14) furthers a modern interpretation of Casino Royale as morally ambiguous by its use of tropes to express female presence, with Vespa coming to represent a temptress. The mirroring of Vespa and Bond`s negative interaction with cane chairs is a subtle, but telling image; Vespa`s concern with her "black velvet" (64) dress is contrasted by Bond`s infinitely more serious torture. These two disparate scenarios serve to further divide the gender spheres and ensure that although she is assisting Bond on his mission, she is not truly his equal. Fleming goes further in this message by allowing Bond to psychologically control the portrayal of her sexuality; when "Bond wanted to spank her" (208), he is playing with the extremes of sexual dominance and even infantilisation even while he contemplates proposing to her.

The earlier images of Bond and Vespa sharing champagne and lobsters and enjoying sumptuous scented baths support the idealised view of Vespa that Bond has created. Her birth on "a dark and stormy night", evoking a cliched literary descri ption and her Classical Latin naming simultaneously romantise and dehumanise her character further by self consciously referencing her fictitious nature. Furthermore, Bond`s naive plea that "that first morning I was coming back to ask you to marry me. Can`t we go back to the beginning again?" (217) while later ignoring her distress and "eyes...full of tears" (218), illustrates Bond`s incompatibility with a traditionally virtuous romantic hero, due to the ambiguous nature of his sexual morality.

Moreover, the chess match theory proposed by Eco is undermined by the prevalence of betrayal as a key characteristic within both Casino Royale and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, jeopardising the view of concrete "sides" to be taken. Trust has to be gained before betrayal can be experienced, and the sexual betrayal of Vespa Lynd in Casino Royale is arguably seen as a more significant moral issue that spying is itself. Her sexual deceit could be seen as an example of the inescapable, even evolutionary male fear of cuckoldry. Bond`s outward moral ambiguity is illustrated by his callous reporting of Vesper`s suicide by the line "the bitch is dead" (228); this can alternately be seen as either a distinct and sustained lack of empathy or a reflexive method of coping with betrayal. The fact that this sentence closes the novel ensures a lack of first person insight or omniscient third person speculation into Bond`s mental state, and guarantees ambiguity. Now that "he could only think of her treachery to the Service and to her country and of the damage it had done." (226), even the feminised ideas of romance and love are transformed at the close of the novel to relate solely to the masculine ideas of duty and country, emphasising the relatively new idea of the female entering into this sphere is a mistake of natural incompatibility.

Espionage fiction takes the ideals of male stoicism and the stereotypical male aggression, and professionalises it. Both Bond and Leamus regard murder in a distant way, even, in Bond`s case, when they are the ones committing the act itself. The moral ambiguity of killing in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Casino Royale comes from three elements; the symbolic language used, the casual nature of the acts and the unquestioning following of orders. In Casino Royale the implied language of criminality used in the phrase "non-squeal killers" (3), blurs the lines between just killing and vigilante murder.18 Similarly in Le Carré`s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Control discusses the very wicked things" (19) spies have to do while "he grinned like a schoolboy" (19). These disparate spheres of reference create a perversion of innocence, but also, in a relishing of immorality reminiscent of Golding`s schoolboy antagonists in Lord of the Flies, highlight Control`s ruthless nature as potentially innate rather than unusual.

Futhermore, Fleming and Le Carré have their characters discuss death with calm and conversational language; Bond explains his double O status and signifying that he has "had to kill a chap in cold blood in the course of some assignment." (169). The use of the "chap" as term of familiarity and social parity suggests an ambiguity in the readers` view of Bond as hero in opposition to men seemingly similar to him as villains needing to die. In The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, the casual remark by Fawley that "Control`s pretty cross about Karl" (15) furthers the readers` understanding that moral uncertainty pervades all levels of the espionage system. The use of understatement, lacking in expletives or hyperbole juxtaposes the polite almost euphemistic feelings of Control with the extreme of death to which it refers. Even when Leamus admits he "was bloody annoyed" (18) about Karl`s death when Control presses him, there is a clear self-serving element to his reaction, rather than a feeling of regret or empathy towards Karl himself. The genuine nature of Leamus` feelings are emphasised by his stubborn refusal to tailor his answers to the prompting of Control`s suggestions that "surely [Leamus] felt more than that? Surely [he was] upset?" (18); by maintaining the integrity of his, all be it callous, opinions, Leamus is established as a straightforward and trustworthy man.

Moreover, considering the Post-War nature of the texts, there is a historically relevant level of moral ambiguity in the problematic attitude of spies as just following orders. The Nuremberg Trails and Milgram`s obedience study of 1963, published the same year as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, are infamous examples of the ease with which immoral acts can be justified by an individual`s perceived duty. To gain his Double 0 title, Bond had to kill what he calmly describes as "probably quite decent people" (169), the uncertainty of the words "probably" and "quite" emphasising the unquestioning nature with which he carried out the murders. However, in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, the active readiness with which Leamus promises that "if it`s a question of killing, Mundt, I`m game" (21), without prompting, suggests an immorality within Leamus rather than simply an unwillingness to see it in the institution he takes orders from.

The protagonists, Bond and Leamus, could potentially justify ambiguous moral actions by having a clarity and certainly of moral purpose. Leamus` disillusionment with this supposed purpose is evident as "he knew he was written off" (13) and sees living as a spy "as a man must live with cancer of imprisonment" (13). The use of these phrases emphasises the permanence of the damning effect espionage work has had on Leamus on both a psychological and physical level, ensuring there is little chance of redeeming the cause he is working for beyond the grim argument it is reluctantly necessary. Bond, on the other hand, lives in a present excessively informed by the past; Fleming merges nostalgia of the historic with the Capitalist glamour of brand names and luxury of the modern in "a high-spending consumer society long familiar from American films" (110). His morality is based both in this new individualism and the patriotism of the golden years of the British Empire gradually fading. Bond`s Bentley in Casino Royale is described as "one of the last" (38), using a symbolically British institution with connotations of the upper classes to place Bond in the role of a nationalistic gentleman, continuing on its legacy. Indeed, Fleming was shocked that what he referred to the "B" and "C" classes of people "find [the Bond series] equally readable" adding that "one might have thought that the sophistication of the background and the detail would be outside their experience and in part incomprehensible" (404). Critic Ann S. Boyd suggests a further layer of masculine tradition to the reading of Bond as "a modern knight of faith whose adventures involve a gallery of modern demons which have been attacking contemporary mankind" (25), reusing these male-dominated eras of knights, empire and Capitalism to combine a sense of nostalgia and relevance.

Spying is portrayed as a nation-maintaining country-oriented career, and the texts hinge on whether to place personal morality or collective security higher in levels of importance. Andrew Lycett posits of Casino Royale that "What raised [it] out of the usual run of thrillers was Ian`s attempt to reflect the disturbing moral ambiguity of a post-war world" (221). The developed myth surrounding the Bond figure, from his gadgets to his signature Martini recipe, has elevated Bond to an archetypal justice seeking anti-hero, approaching the equivalent of a British Batman. However, the text of Casino Royale itself creates a less sensationalised character, whose patches of moral philosophising seem forced from a man who was "still alive thanks to the exact attention to the detail of his profession" (8). The self conscious vignettes provided by Bond when he tells Mathis "History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing places" (170), can be seen to reflect both the individual characters within the novel, but also reflect the idea of Bond as a symbolic representation of Britain, with the heroes and villains equating to the shifts in national alliances.

Similarly, the Library of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold forms a microcosmic environment illustrating the wider concerns and plots within the novel by hinting at moral and literal ambiguity. The semantic field of guilt pervades the Library as images of religion and law create an atmosphere of judgment onto Leamus; the building "was like a church hall" (30) and architectural details include "a cubicle like a witness box" (30). Moreover, the instances of incomplete information when "They only seemed to have volume four" (31) and control of information as "Only Miss Crail is allowed to ink in the reference" (30), serve as a foreboding warning towards the condition and tactics of the State itself. Furthermore Miss Crail`s relationship with her Mother reflects the infighting and moral disparities within intelligence agencies themselves. When Leamus corrects her spelling of his name Miss Crail "conspired into the telephone for hours after" (34), where previously she has been seen to exclusively disagree with her Mother; she both argues with and conspires with her.

The contextual significance of the Cold War pervades The Spy Who Came in from the Cold as the novel seems to pose the question `How far are we willing to let our Secret State go to combat Soviet Union without compromising our own ideals?`. The notion of the Cold War as a conflict of ideas between supposedly diametrically opposed viewpoints highlights the ironic note to the shared espionage tactics of both Communist and Capitalist societies. Control believes methods used should be equal on all sides, regardless of government policies, even that this is fundamentally necessary, yet le Carré`s portrayal of his ambiguous character seems to undermine this view as vigilante justification. Furthermore, the blurring of supposed opposition is highlighted by the complex national identities of the characters. Le Carré insists that "it was hard to place Leamus" (15), allowing him to seem both German and Irish, and treating these as two distinct identities. Similarly, Casino Royale`s villain Le Chiffre has uncertain racial origins "indicating some Jewish blood...probably a mixture of Mediterranean with Prussian or Polish strains" (18). If intelligence is country lead and patriotic at its core one has to believe there is a fundamental integrity within countries and a distinction from others; this nationalistic ambiguity is interlinked with ambiguity of a moral sense. Leamus, in his juxtaposed appearance "looked like...a man who was not quite a gentleman" (15), as if this division in identity had caused a cultural deficiency.

In conclusion, Bond uses a period of redefining morality to create a picture of manhood that justifies his potentially morally ambiguous actions. In Fleming`s novel moral ambiguity and double standards are a male prerogative, if not a male virtue. For Le Carré morality is ambiguous not just between belief systems but within belief systems; arguably the common link between the methods and attitudes of spying morally equalise opposing sides. For both protagonists "intelligence work has one moral law- it is justified by results" (13), even if the results are intangible reaches for a "greater good" trapped in the flawed view of masculine nationalism and workplace duty.