The Spy Who Came In From The Cold War Analysis

How do the representations of conflict in your after the Bomb texts reveal the ways of thinking of the context?
In your response, refer to one prescribed text and one text of your own choosing.

The “After the Bomb Period” gave rise to voices of protest as they criticize the philosophical and political paradigms that endorsed pre-bomb notions of certainty, governmental sagacity and paternalism. John Le Carré’s spy novel, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, reveals this (so it connects better to previous claims) shift in global consciousness by using the world of espionage as a microcosmic representation of the socio-political and ideological conflict of the of the post-WWII context; the conflict between East and West, and the conflict between
Le Carré uses Leamas’s cynical dialogue, “Intelligence work has one moral law - it is justified by results,” to encapsulate the corrupted Cold War ideology of both East and West, as their respective extreme values imposed on a wide scale justifies the means of conflict. The machinations of Control, Smiley and Mundt condemn a political paradigm that masqueraded as an oppositional schism that divided East and West along ideological metanarratives of good-versus-evil, while concealing the moral and political corruption of both parties within the paradox, “I would say that since the war, our methods-out and those of the opposition-have become much the same.” Leamas’ interrogation, ‘They must have a philosophy.’ ‘Why must they? Perhaps they don’t know, don’t even care’” identifies a construct of artifice and illusion wherein violence, deceit and pragmatic expediency are justified in the pursuit of an abstract ideological goal that has already contradicted its own basis. Echoing social commentator, David Monaghan’s affirmation that “betrayal, deceit, concealment, and isolation, those qualities we associate with espionage, prove to be equally applicable to the society at large,” Le Carré uses the imagery of putrefaction to
Control’s Machiavellian self-justifying rationalization, “we do disagreeable things so that ordinary people here and elsewhere can sleep safely in their beds at night … Of course, we occasionally do very wicked things,” positions readers to question the validity of the expediency and contingent moral standards of the West. The frightening discrepancy between Smiley’s professed ideological stance and his actions underscores the hypocrisy of Western ideology that condemns its Communist enemy for its “theory that the whole is more important than the individual” yet sacrifices individuals such as Leamas and Liz “for the sake of the common good.” Smiley’s use of Liz and Leamas as expendable pawns and stooges in a Machiavellian political intrigue, that recalls the machinations condemned by Atomic Café, serves as a symbol of the monstrosity of ideology gone wrong, as both sides of the Cold War confrontation embrace the same stance. Liz represents a populace at the mercy of incomprehensible powers for whom “people don’t matter”, as she and Leamas, stripped of dignity and attachment, represent the anonymity and death that lurks at the heart of modernity. Yet the combination of her pliant nature and Leamas’s cynical attitude and dialogue, “I