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56 pages 1 hour read

John le Carré

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1974

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Character Analysis

George Smiley

George Smiley is the protagonist in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. On the outside, he appears to be a harmless and somewhat pitiful old man who has been forced into retirement and who is embarrassed by his estranged wife. Smiley is bored by his retirement and spends his days inventing ways to occupy his time while avoiding people he does not want to see. His wife has once again left him for another man and everyone in his social circle seems to know this. But beneath this seemingly sad exterior, Smiley’s mind never sleeps. Even in retirement, he cannot leave behind his past as a spy. His shambling, overweight form passes innocently through the streets of London, but he is watching every detail and carefully cataloging the world for later review. Smiley’s attentive mind and constant use of spy tricks in retirement show how those at the Circus can never truly leave their lives behind.

According to the Russian spymaster Karla, Smiley’s one weakness is Ann. He is so devoted to her—even though she frequently betrays him—that he allows his judgement in regard to Ann to be a weakness. Smiley is aware of the rumors that constantly circulate about Ann in his social circles. He often ignores or dismisses them out of a sense of personal proprietary. These dismissals reveal that Smiley is aware of his weakness for his wife. As with everything else, Smiley takes a dispassionate perspective on the matter and accepts his own flaws while trying to compensate for them in a rational manner.

Smiley’s role as an outsider is essential, as he was forced out of his job by Alleline in the wake of the failure of Operation Testify. Smiley has cause to resent Alleline and everyone who forced him into retirement, but his purposefully objective investigation of the case shows how Smiley refuses to entertain grudges. This deliberate attempt to remain objective prolongs Smiley’s investigation. He is so determined to not bear grudges that he refuses to accept that Haydon might be the mole, as he worries that people will think that he is just trying to extract revenge. The exact traits that make Smiley the perfect person to investigate the issue nearly cause him to miss the truth. However, Smiley eventually succeeds, and his disgraced departure from the intelligence services reverses to the point that he temporarily oversees the Circus.

Bill Haydon

Bill Haydon is a high-ranking member of the Circus and a mole. After losing faith in the capitalist ideology of Britain and the United States, he establishes a connection with Russian intelligence, which eventually leads to him setting up a fake flow of information from Russia to Britain to disguise the actual information which he is sending back. In public, Haydon affects a disinterested and bored persona. He considers himself to be an artist rather than a member of the Circus, so he looks down on others who do not understand his artistic ideas. Haydon’s vanity is part of the reason why he became a mole; Haydon’s treachery is artistic in ambition; he wanted to show the world that he was incredibly smart and important. Haydon made little impact on the world through his paintings, but his work as the mole was his true masterpiece. He sought to change the world and be remembered as a great man. The cost of this vainglorious ambition, however, was betraying his country and everyone he loved.

The people Haydon loves are always betrayed. Just as he betrays his country, his affairs with Ann and Prideaux end in disaster. At the end of the novel, Smiley learns that the affair between Haydon and Ann was a plot to distract Smiley rather than a real romance. While Ann cared for Haydon and Smiley endured years of ridicule, Haydon conducted the affair as part of his plot. To him, the affair was a perfunctory order from his commanding officer, betraying the trust of his lover Ann and his friend Smiley.

Prideaux is the only person to whom Haydon seemed genuinely dedicated. Haydon wrote glowingly of Prideaux in his letters and always bore affection for his one-time lover. However, he also orchestrated Prideaux’s involvement in Operation Testify, which resulted in Prideaux being captured and tortured. Even the people Haydon seems to love the most are eventually hurt by him. To Haydon, betrayal is just another technique in his artistic project to establish himself as one of history’s most important and consequential figures. He does not take the betrayal personally, so he does not believe anyone else will. This belief is eventually proved to be untrue, as Prideaux kills him. Haydon’s betrayal and treachery are eventually returned to him by the one person who loved him the most and who felt the most betrayed by his selfishness.

Percy Alleline

Percy Alleline takes over at the Circus when Control must retire due to the failure of Operation Testify. As a desperately ambitious person, Alleline becomes the perfect figure for Haydon and Karla to guide toward the top. Alleline is not as smart or as resourceful as his rivals, but he plays the political side of the intelligence world well. He knows how to garner and keep the support of important people while hiring smarter people to do the actual work of intelligence gathering. His ambition to oust Control means that Haydon’s Operation Witchcraft material dupes Alleline to the reality of the situation. He is so desperate for the idea of a valuable source inside the Russian upper echelons that he abandons all the usual procedures for intelligence gathering. Alleline is so keen to succeed that he becomes the fall guy for Haydon’s plan. Alleline’s ambition and vanity cause Control to despise him as well. Ironically, Alleline meets the same fate as Control, as both men are fired from the top job in the Circus after an embarrassing failure. Alleline’s role in the novel illustrates the way in which the most skilled spies can turn a small weakness in others into a huge advantage for themselves. Alleline’s flaws are exploited by Haydon at the cost of almost destroying the entire British intelligence service.

Toby Esterhase

Toby Esterhase is a key member of the Circus but is trusted by no one. He oversees the lamplighters, the group tasked with tapping phones, trailing suspects, and running all kinds of surveillance. His work means that everyone constantly assumes he or his men are spying on them. Esterhase’s separation from the rest of the Circus is also evident in his biography. Unlike the British members of the Circus, Esterhase comes from a Hungarian family. He attempts to deal with the idea that he is not truly British by playing the role of a stereotypical British gentleman. Esterhase dresses flamboyantly and has several affectations and behaviors which he believes make him seem more British. To people like Smiley, however, these affectations only make Esterhase seem even more foreign and even more suspicious.

Roy Bland

Roy Bland is an important figure at the Circus and another person recruited by Smiley while at Oxford University. Bland is considered something of an ideologue and a supporter of left-wing views, but he is entirely disillusioned with politics. Bland admits that his years working for the Circus have alienated him from any political ideas. He now carries out his work dispassionately and without supporting any cause or political idea. Bland is an example of the way in which working for intelligence agencies can remove the optimism and passion from a person, reducing their personality to a paranoid husk who lives in a self-contained world which they see no possibility of changing.

Control

Control was the head of the Circus until he was forced to retire in the wake of Operation Testify. A secretive, belligerent old man, Control insisted on total autonomy of the Circus, to the extent that many people did not know his real name. Smiley was Control’s protégé, meaning that he was sidelined at the same time. Despite this apparently close relationship, Control included Smiley on a list of suspects when he became convinced there was a mole in the Circus. The idea began to obsess Control. He became a paranoid wreck who was slowly dying of cancer. Control’s fate is a warning about the futures of all those who work in the intelligence agencies. Eventually, the paranoia and suspicion become overwhelming. Control died alone and disgraced, even though he was eventually proved right. A lifetime working for the Circus is the dream of many of the characters, even though Control is the perfect example of how this lifestyle eventually destroys a person.

Peter Guilliam

Peter Guilliam is Smiley’s deputy. At the beginning of the novel, he runs the scalphunters. The scalphunters is the organization within the Circus tasked with the more physical, more violent aspects of intelligence gathering. They hurt, torture, and occasionally kill people. Guilliam is made head of the scalphunters as part of the reorganization of the Circus in the wake of Operation Testify. He views this role as a demotion, motivating him to help Smiley find the mole in the Circus. Though Smiley often takes advantage of Guilliam’s capacity for hard work, Guilliam trusts Smiley more than anyone else. He is fiercely loyal and feels personally betrayed by Haydon’s treason. For all Guilliam’s intellect and resourcefulness, he struggles to keep his emotions as contained as men like Smiley.

Oliver Lacon

Oliver Lacon is a British civil servant who operates as a liaison between the government and the intelligence agencies. He recruits Smiley to investigate the possible mole in the Circus and provides support throughout the operation. Like many of the other characters, Lacon is a middle-class, private school-educated Oxford graduate. His social status shows the ways in which all British institutions are populated by like-minded people from similar backgrounds.

Jim Prideaux

Jim Prideaux is a former Circus operative who was shot, captured, and tortured during the failed Operation Testify in Czechoslovakia. Prideaux is a wounded man, whether trying to deal with the bullets lodged in his back, the professional failure of Operation Testify, or the personal betrayal of his friend and one-time lover. Unlike many of his fellow operatives, Prideaux is something of a loner. His university era friendship with Haydon came to define Prideaux, with the relationship becoming romantic. Prideaux and Haydon loved one another, meaning that Prideaux felt betrayed on a personal as well as a professional level by Haydon’s treason. Though never explicitly stated, the novel implies that Prideaux killed Haydon and then returned to work at a private school while recovering from the emotional fallout of the act.

Bill Roach

Bill Roach is a lonely, young schoolboy who develops an unlikely friendship with Prideaux. Roach blames himself for his parents’ recent divorce and he struggles to make friends at his new private school. When Prideaux arrives as a substitute teacher, Roach recognizes him as a fellow loner. Roach worries about his substitute teacher’s private struggles, feeling the same guilt over Prideaux’s emotional torture as he did regarding his parent’s divorce. When Prideaux recovers, Roach can convince himself that he invented the entire ordeal of seeing Prideaux with a gun and witnessing Prideaux’s dark moods. Roach’s eagerness to forget the past is reflective of society’s attitude toward the intelligence services. They are happy to ignore reality and embrace a comforting lie so long as they do not have to directly confront the pain and violence conducted on their behalf and in the name of the state.

Ann Smiley

Ann Smiley is Smiley’s estranged wife. Though Smiley loves her, she is frequently unfaithful to him. Her latest affair means that she is absent from most of the book while her affair with Haydon threatens to become a national security issue. Karla considers Ann to be Smiley’s only real weakness, as his affection for her clouds his judgement. As a result, Karla ordered Haydon to initiate an affair with Ann in the hope that Smiley would be distracted enough not to detect Haydon’s treasonous betrayal. In the novel, Ann’s role is to humanize Smiley. His enduring love for her despite the constant betrayals suggests that he is as flawed and as relatable as everyone else. In a world of lies, deception, and emotionless actions, Smiley’s love for Ann suggests that even the best spies have their weaknesses.

Ricki Tarr

Ricki Tarr is a field agent who was recruited by Smiley to work for the Circus. He discovers that a mole is working within the Circus and tries to alert his bosses without getting killed. Tarr views Smiley as a father figure and is always keen to impress his recruiter, to the point where he dismisses other Circus employees due to them being potential rivals for Smiley’s attention. Tarr is an emotional man, whose affection and dependency on others bond him quickly to people like Smiley or Irina. This need for affection and approval contrasts with his work for the Circus, which is typically alienating and violent. Tarr embodies the human cost of working in intelligence: After a lifetime spent tricking and hurting others, he is desperate to find love or validation in other people to ameliorate the pain he has caused in others.

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