Tremor of Intent: Analysis of Major Characters
"Tremor of Intent: Analysis of Major Characters" delves into the intricacies of key figures within the narrative, exploring their relationships and psychological complexities against the backdrop of Cold War tensions. Central to the story is Denis Hillier, a British secret agent facing challenges that reveal his vulnerabilities, including his interactions with former friend Edwin Roper, a defector whose skeptical worldview contrasts sharply with Hillier's mission-oriented mindset. Roper's journey, marked by disillusionment and personal sacrifice, reflects broader themes of faith and identity, particularly as he grapples with the fallout of his romantic choices and political allegiance.
The narrative also introduces Theodorescu, a morally ambiguous double agent whose hedonistic tendencies and manipulation of others underscore the darker aspects of the espionage world. Other characters, such as Richard Wriste, a steward with a hidden agenda, and the enigmatic Miss Devi, add layers of intrigue, representing varying shades of moral indifference. Alan and Clara Walters, siblings adrift in the emotional aftermath of their father's death, serve as symbols of innocence amidst the surrounding chaos, with Hillier stepping into a paternal role that evolves throughout the story. Together, these characters illuminate the nuanced interplay of loyalty, betrayal, and the moral dilemmas inherent in a world defined by espionage and shifting allegiances.
Tremor of Intent: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Anthony Burgess
First published: 1966
Genre: Novel
Locale: Bradcaster, London, aboard the Polyolbion, Yarylyuk, Istanbul, and Dublin
Plot: Spy
Time: The mid-1960's, with flashbacks to the 1930's and 1940's
Denis Hillier, a British secret agent in his mid-forties. His final assignment before retirement is to travel to Yarylyuk, in the Crimea, where he is to persuade or compel the defector Edwin Roper to redefect. Coincidentally—or perhaps not—Hillier and Roper were schoolmates at a Roman Catholic public school, continued to correspond during World War II, and remained friends afterward. As a secret agent, Hillier is sophisticated, capable, and skeptical; he is also overtly sexual and combative. Unlike most spy heroes, however, he keeps discovering his limitations. Traveling aboard the Polyolbion, a Black Sea cruise ship, for example, his cover is penetrated by a thirteen-year-old whiz kid, he is seduced and drugged by a Eurindian sexual prodigy, he loses a stupid eating contest, and he discloses major secrets to a double agent. Furthermore, in his attempts to regain the initiative and realize his objective, he keeps learning that things are not as they seem and that dividing the world into “us and them” is a reductive absurdity. By the end of the novel, having “disappeared” himself, he has become a priest.
Edwin Roper, Hillier's former friend, a rocket-fuels scientist who has defected to the Soviets. From the beginning of their friendship, Roper is a doubter of conventional explanations. He begins by rejecting the orthodox Catholic doctrine of his public school chaplain, progresses to questioning the innocence of German culture in the atrocities of World War II, and ends in finding the Cold War a convenient political contrivance for both sides. Although assertive in intellectual confrontations, Roper is hopeless socially. In Germany, after the war, he falls in love with Brigitte, a prostitute by nature. Led apparently by his hormones, he pliantly accepts her excuses for German complicity and marries her, only to find her continuing her trade. When Hillier succeeds in separating them, Roper temporarily adopts the platform of the Labour Party; however, he defects to the Soviet Union in the hope of being reunited with Brigitte. When he finally is liberated by Hillier, he demonstrates that repatriation would have absolutely no effect on anything but the reputations of certain intelligence operatives and administrators. He remains in Russia.
Theodorescu, a double agent and intelligence broker. A man who makes positive virtues out of obesity and consumption, he seems simply a gourmand and polysophisticate on first acquaintance; however, he proves to be the most sinister of sensualists, deviants, and amoralists. This is disclosed first in his conscienceless seduction of the thirteen-year-old Alan Walters. He defeats Hillier in a bet on gluttony, then uses Hillier's own sexual appetites to gain control of and neutralize him. He thus becomes the truly evil element in the political world of the Cold War, one who catalyzes existing tensions solely to profit from them and who believes only in himself and his own gratification.
Richard Wriste, also called Rick and Ricky, a steward aboard the cruise ship Polyolbion. He apparently is quite willing to provide any service for the appropriate gratuity. In this respect, he inhabits a moral universe parallel to Theodorescu's: Anything can be bought or sold, regardless of right or wrong. It nevertheless is shocking when it is revealed that he is a hired assassin, a hit man for a neutral agency, assigned to kill both Hillier and Roper. He was hired by Hillier's own superiors, who believe that he has learned too many Allied secrets during his career. Still, whether as an obsequious Cockney waiter or as a contract murderer, Wriste, like Theodorescu, is one of the soulless neutrals, indifferent to good or evil.
Miss Devi, the seductive and inscrutable companion-assistant of Theodorescu. A stunning, dark, exotic beauty with an encyclopedic repertoire of sexual techniques, she confronts Hillier directly, almost impersonally, before he has time to determine his own sexual objectives. She practices sex expertly but indifferently, as a means of gaining control of men. When Hillier later expresses a preference for sex as a simple exchange of intimacy, she immediately disengages.
Alan Walters, a precocious thirteen-year-old game show expert. He is aboard ship with his sister; his self-indulgent father, who suffers a fatal stroke on the voyage; and his indifferent, gold-digging stepmother. Left essentially to rear himself, Alan embarrasses Hillier by breaking his cover, then lets himself be seduced by Theodorescu so that he can get a gun. Ultimately, he proves indispensable in saving Hillier. In return, Hillier gives him the direction his father failed to provide.
Clara Walters, Alan's eighteen-year-old sister, an amazingly beautiful blond, abandoned like her brother to her own devices. At the beginning of the novel, though still a virgin, she spends most of her time studying sex manuals. After her father's death, Hillier takes on the necessity of comforting the survivors; in Clara's case, this leads at first to sexual initiation but finally to a kind of spiritual fatherhood.