Eye Of The Needle Essay

Love, just like war, is a nigh impossible force that can only be stopped with the greatest of perseverance and thought. In his spy novel, Eye of the Needle, set during the Second World War in Britain, author Ken Follett often uses love in order to show his characters’ true selves reflected through the social mores and customs of the age. He also shows these feelings of love and passion in order to advance the motion of the story itself and to serve as powerful twists in the flow of the novel. Ken Follett, in his famous spy thriller Eye of the Needle, heavily utilizes the natures of romance and diverse sexual desires among the main characters of the novel to provide deep insight into the cultural mores of the mid-20th century, give deep character

She, as a woman in the 1940’s, is extremely conflicted with her thoughts of leaving David and, although eventually succumbing to the temptation, remains steadfastly loyal to him throughout their loveless and thankless marriage. She is also extremely naïve in the arts of sex as it is stated that she had only had sex twice and that she had never orgasmed until her relationship with Faber began. This characterization of Lucy shows an evolution in her character from a conflicted, ignorant woman to a self-confident, smart woman in the course of the novel. The patriotism and feeling of indebtedness by David shows that he is a person who is, while extremely loyal to his country, filled with the demons and feelings of inadequacy about his injury and his apparent failure to serve his nation. After his seeming failure to even be injured in the proper circumstance of battle, he “has given up on life and love and has immersed himself in debilitating self-pity” (Macdonald). These examples of thankless and unrequited love, David for Lucy and Britain for David, show a prominent form of love that shapes the characters in the