57 pages • 1 hour read
Ken FollettEye of the Needle
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1978A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Cost of Loyalty
Loyalty—whether to country or to loved ones—is an important motivator for all the principal characters in The Eye of the Needle, and each must decide whether loyalty is worth the cost. Faber is a spy who feels an intense sense of loyalty to Germany. Faber grew up in a wealthy family, the son of a military man. He was raised with a sense of patriotism that stays with him as he lives in Britain and works to find information that could help Germany during World War II. However, Faber’s loyalty to his country comes second to his own survival. Faber confesses on many occasions that the only reason he kills is to protect his identity. Faber believes that no one knows what Die Nadel looks like, and therefore he must kill anyone who is in a position to identify him as a spy. Several times when Faber commits murder, he tells the victim, “You saw my face” (85). Loyalty to his country and to his own survival are Faber’s sole motivations throughout the novel, at least until he meets Lucy.
Loyalty is also seen in Percy and Bloggs. Percy joins MI5 because he wants to protect the people of London, with whom he feels a strong sense of community during an air raid. Bloggs joins because he is inspired by his wife’s heroic work as an ambulance driver. Both men are motivated by a combination of national and personal loyalties. Bloggs is angry and wants revenge for the death of his wife. Percy is experiencing new love and wants to protect his new lover’s son from the disaster that could take place in Normandy on D-Day should Faber be successful in getting his information to Hitler. These personal loyalties are inextricably bound up with loyalty to England, a country in which everyone faces the likelihood of losing loved ones to the war.
Loyalty is most clearly seen with Lucy. The accident that took place on her wedding night took away her dreams of a bright future with her new husband. David has changed due to his injuries and is no longer the loving, supportive husband Lucy imagined he would be—though his behavior prior to the accident suggests he might never have been that person. David refuses to be intimate with Lucy and treats her rudely, creating tension in their marriage. Lucy recognizes that David is struggling with the emotional aspects of his injury and remains loyal to him, choosing not to leave him although he gives her every reason to do so. However, Lucy’s loyalty to her marriage and David is tested when Faber comes to Storm Island.
Each character finds themselves in a position at one point or another where they must question their loyalty to country or family. Faber questions his actions each time he kills, becoming physically ill in a way that shows he understands that his actions are morally wrong. Only his loyalty to country (and self-preservation) is strong enough to override his aversion to murder. Percy questions his own loyalty to his country when Terry first asks him to join MI5. Only the moment of communal singing on the train platform convinces him to become the leader of the team that tracks Faber to Storm Island. Bloggs’s loyalty wavers when his wife dies, until his desire for revenge shows him that continuing to find spies is his best contribution to ending the war. Lucy’s loyalty faces the ultimate test when Faber comes to Storm Island, and she turns to him in a moment of weakness to receive the intimacy she has been missing with David. Lucy is the only character who becomes disloyal, but David’s death and the true nature of Faber’s character bring out her loyalty to her country, and she becomes the hero David had wanted to be.
War as a Test of Courage
Courage is a common theme in fiction set in wartime. Characters in these novels are often placed in dangerous or precarious situations and must find courage they did not previously know they possessed. In The Eye of the Needle, Follet places many of his characters in unusual situations that reveal their true character, creating the theme of courage in wartime.
As a German spy in England, Faber is in constant danger. Spies who are caught are swiftly executed, and these executions are carried out in public view, so Faber has ample opportunity to see what will happen to him if he is captured. When he is called to a rendezvous with another spy in Chapter 7, his experience tells him that the situation is dangerous. Though he knows he should stay away, he goes to meet the spy anyway, in part out of a sense of duty and in part out of simple boredom. Despite all his obsessive efforts at self-protection, Faber reveals another aspect of courage in wartime: He becomes so habituated to danger that he begins to crave it, feeling unfulfilled and overcome by ennui if he is too safe for too long.
Bloggs faces constant danger in his search for Die Nadel, and he draws motivation from his wife, Christine, whom he views as an exemplar of courage. Bloggs’s wife works at night as an ambulance driver, rescuing victims of air raids. Because she willingly puts her life at risk every night to help others, he believes he cannot shrink from the risks involved in his own work. When Christine is killed by a bomb, Bloggs is devastated, but his desire to avenge her death makes him more courageous than ever.
David dreams of displaying courage as a pilot and becoming a war hero. However, when the accident takes David’s legs, his courage is tested in a different way than he anticipated. Unable to accept his changed circumstances, he falls into a depression that makes him angry and unable to maintain an intimate marriage with Lucy. When Faber comes to Storm Island and David recognizes in his behavior and his possessions that he is a German spy, David summons true courage for the first time. He knows he is risking his life by confronting Faber, but he willingly does so to prevent Faber from relaying sensitive information to his German superiors. David shows courage in attacking Faber in his jeep, trying to murder him and keep him from getting his pictures to Hitler. Unfortunately, David’s courage is not enough to protect him from Faber’s fighting skills.
In the end, the one person who needs the most courage is Lucy. Follet places his one female character in a precarious situation on the isolated setting of Storm Island. Not only is Lucy alone on the island with Faber, but she must also protect Jo, her three-year-old son. Lucy is isolated and vulnerable, forcing her to draw upon her courage to confront Faber and stop him from contacting the U-boat waiting for him in the harbor. Lucy doesn’t have any special training to help her, but uses her courage and resourcefulness, placing her own life in danger to short the electricity in the small cottage, shutting down the wireless transmitter so Faber cannot contact the U-boat. She then chases Faber out to a cliff and uses a rock to kill him, stopping him once and for all. Lucy’s courage achieves what none of the other characters in the novel have done, saving the D-Day invasion from failure by stopping Faber from getting information to Hitler. Lucy would never face such a situation in peacetime, but in this precarious moment in wartime, she draws on a courage that makes her the hero of her own story.
Isolation and Community in Wartime
The pressures of the war create both isolation and community in The Eye of the Needle. The clearest symbol of isolation in the novel is Storm Island, the small island where Lucy and David Rose go to live after the car accident that takes David’s legs. The island, a working sheep farm, is no more than 10 miles long and boasts only two cottages. Its only contact with the outside world—other than Tom’s radio transmitter, which only he uses—is the boat that arrives every two weeks with supplies and mail. This near-total isolation exacerbates the tension in Lucy and David’s marriage: As David struggles to cope with depression and anger regarding his injuries, Lucy has no one in which to confide. The island is like a prison that neither Lucy nor David can escape, forcing them to face the brokenness of their marriage.
Faber, the novel’s antagonist, isolated in a different way. As a spy, he finds a life of solitude safer as it reduces the chances that someone might figure out who he is and what he is up to. He has no friends in England, and he is forced to kill anyone who might figure out his identity. This isolation leaves Faber with no one to share his life with and makes him vulnerable when an unexpected attraction develops between him and Lucy Rose. As a result of Faber’s desire to no longer be alone, he falls for Lucy and finds himself unable to kill her, leaving himself vulnerable to her actions after she figures out who he is.
Grief can also be isolating. After the accident, David’s grief causes him to isolate himself from Lucy, becoming emotionally unavailable. Similarly, Percy is isolated in his grief over the loss of his wife. He avoids social engagements and throws himself into his work to distract himself from the pain of this loss. In the midst of all this isolation, though, the pressures of wartime can also create moments of unexpected community. Percy witnesses a moment of spontaneous, communal singing on a train platform, and the intense fellow-feeling of this moment galvanizes him to continue his pursuit of Faber. Lucy, too, draws strength from community at the very moment when she is most isolated. During the storm, no boats, planes, or other modes of transportation can approach the island. This leaves Lucy completely isolated with Faber. Lucy is able to call for help, but they cannot physically approach the island until the storm ends. Lucy acts on her own, but she does so with the support of Percy and Bloggs, with members of the British military waiting in the wings. She is made aware that her fight against Faber will have consequences far beyond herself, and this knowledge gives her the courage to defeat him. Though Lucy is physically isolated, she is conscious of herself as part of a community, and this sense of community is her source of strength.
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