Spies Michael Frayn Analysis

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This passage from the opening chapter of ‘Spies’ (by Michael Frayn) introduces an old man called Stephen Wheatley reflecting on his childhood - when his friend Keith first revealed that his own mother was a German spy. In many parts of the book, Frayn uses the first person narration in order to suggest some ambiguity, as the use of this often implies a bias view on a certain topic which may connote that there is no certain truth behind everything the narrator tells the reader about. As the story moves along, more tension is built as the mystery never seems to cease.
Throughout this extract, the narrator seems to evoke a secret and an elusive sense of smell which in turn creates interest. As the narrator seems to reflect on his past, he asks the daughter about the familiar smell without revealing reasons. This may suggest that …show more content…

As this word is labelled by the daughter, the author begins to think deeply about this specific word. The author writes ‘Liguster…’ to recreate a sense of the narrator mulling over the meanings in his mind. The use of the ellipses may imply that this unfamiliar word (for the readers) has some manner of importance within this passage as he begins to come up with fragments of his time back when he was a child. As he gets nearer to a solution, the interest is intensified in correlation to this journey. At first he said, ‘I’m no wiser’, which denotes that Stephen does not have a clue what Liguster actually means and what it reminds him of. However, memories start to slowly come flooding back, as the narrator says ‘And yet’ and ‘Hold on, though’. Finally, he finds discovers the hidden meaning behind the odour, as he states ‘Of course! How obvious!’. The build up of tension and the suspense is what makes this passage so interesting for the

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