Analyse af Grahame Greenes novelle 'I Spy'

The story-setting is set in a coastal town - due to the fact that the main character can hear the wind from the sea and the beating of the waves. The coastal town could be located around the eastern seashore in England, but it is not mentioned in this short-story.

The short-story takes place in the First World War, which makes the environment hardy.

If you want to achieve anything you have to fight for it - our main character is a fine example of this. Words like “Huns”, which is another word for Germans in English and “the Zeppelins”, which is an aircraft filled with hydrogen.

Personal characteristic:

Charlie Stowe is somehow a normal child at the age 12. Charlie lives in a coastal town with his dad and mom. Charlie is in my opinion anxious about the situation itself and his father. Charlie does in generally not care much about his father.”but he did not love his father; his father was unreal to him, a wraith, pale, thin, and indefinite.”(Page1; L9-10). Throughout the short-story Charlie bounces between the courageous – the adult side which tells him: “if he were caught now there was nothing to be done about it, and he might as well have his smoke.”(P2;Ly6-7) And the insecure - the other child side which tells him that he will be caught and will be marked as a criminal. He evolves from a child to more of an adult. When Charlie is going down the stairs he becomes more confident and bold. It is the adultness inside him that reinforces so he can make it. The stairs symbolize a personal development within Charlie. To support that theory; at the end of the story our main character is identifying himself with his own dad. This becomes true, when Charlie succeeds in his misdeed. That both his parents would deny. It is first when his dad is taken away by the policemen that Charlie is feeling the love that he has for his dad. Charlie gets his chance at spying, when he is hiding in the tobacco-shop. He is much like his dad, doing stuff in the dark he is affright of.