The Character Of George Smiley In Tinker Tailor, Spy

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John le Carré, is an English spy novel, which takes place during the heat of the Cold War, more specifically 1972. The protagonist of the book, George Smiley is described as, “Small, podgy and at best middle-aged, he was by appearance one of London’s meek who do not inherit the earth. His legs were short, his gait anything but agile, his dress costly, ill-fitting and extremely wet.” This is the reader’s first glimpse of the problem-solver of the novel, as he rushes along a rainy street in London. Brought out of an enforced retirement, Smiley is tasked with finding out who a suspected mole is in “the Circus” (British Intelligence Headquarters in London). Through the flashbacks, stories that nestle within stories,
Tarr had fallen for the wife of a Moscow Centre intelligence officer, who had informed him that she knew of a Soviet mole, code-named “Gerald”, that held a high-ranking position in the Circus. When Tarr relayed this information to the Circus, his lover was abducted by her superiors, only convincing Tarr that the tale of a mole was true. At this point, George Smiley is enlisted out of retirement to investigate the mole without the knowledge of the Circus, as any of the top men could be the mole. The novel follows George Smiley and the few people he feels he can trust on their journey to uncover the man with so much potential to damage Britain. They slowly and carefully gather information, by whatever means necessary, methodically researching the events, while piecing together missing information, inconsistencies, and
Any one of them could be guilty. Smiley suspects that “Gerald” is responsible for the failure of Operation Testify, the mission which led to the torture of Prideaux and the disgrace of Control. By questioning Prideaux, Smiley learns that Control suspected the mole’s existence and that the true aim of Testify was to learn the mole’s identity from the Czech general. He also finds that the personnel who interrogated Prideaux knew all of this information, revealing that the operation was a trap set to discredit Control and remove the threat to “Gerald”.
Smiley continues on the complicated investigation, finally discovering a safe house where Gerald and his Soviet handler meet. By creating a circumstance which forces Gerald to have an emergency meeting with his handler at the safe house, Smiley is able to catch the mole in action at the discovered house. He reveals the mole, to be Bill Haydon. Once a friend, a respected colleague, Smiley is shocked by his discovery. Haydon admits that “Karla”, the Moscow Centre spymaster, recruited him several decades