I Spy by Graham Greene is a short novel about Charlie Stowe. Charlie Stowe is a 12-year-old boy living with his mother during the war. His Father is absent and is described a ‘wraith’. The story revolves around Charlie stealing cigarettes from his Father’s shop and the feelings this stirs up in him. He is a good boy but bullying at school has driven him to do something that is wrong and against the law. The story looks at Charlie’s fear, and his relationship with his Father and Mother. It looks at how we decide what is right and wrong in a world where this is no longer clear.
The story starts with Charlie lying awake at night listening to the wind and waves. He is full of fear at what he feels he has to do. He is the only boy at school who does not smoke and is being mocked by other boys because of this. He waits until his mother is asleep ‘ ……could hear behind his mother’s snores………..’ to creep downstairs into his Father’s tobacconist’s shop to steal cigarettes.
Before he can do this, he hears his Father’s voice along with two other men. Charlie ‘cowers into the darkness’ of the shop and prays he is not found. He is full of fear.
He hears his Father ask the men if they want some cigarettes but they reply that they shouldn’t as they are on duty. His Father goes on to say he does not wish to wake the family, when they offer him the chance to speak to his wife ‘never do today what you can put off till tomorrow’. His father reaches for his coat and leaves with the men. Charlie suddenly realises that he and his Father are alike at that moment ‘doing things in the dark which frightened him’. He suddenly felt the urge to go down and ‘tell his father that he loved him’ but he heard ‘quick steps going away’. The story ends with Charlie alone in the house with his mother, falling asleep.
Charlie is treated differently to the other boys in school because he has never smoked a cigarette. Smoking at the age of 12 was, and still is, illegal and Charlie had never wanted to break the law before. To do so now, indicates the level of bullying and mocking he was experiencing at school. Breaking the law, and risking the anger from his father if caught backs up the argument that the amount of fear Charlie felt at that moment in time from his bullies was bigger than this.
Charlie is living with his mother at the time the story is placed. He loves his mother dearly. He has a ‘passionate, demonstrative love’ for her. She appears in the story as a vibrant character. Full of life and laughter. He sees her as friend to everyone and someone who loves the Queen who she describes as the ‘dear Queen’. She is obviously a patriot as she describes Germans as ‘Hun’s’, who are seen in the story as ‘monsters lurking in Zeppelins’.
Charlie’s Father feels unreal to him and is described as a ‘wraith, pale thin and indefinite’. He describes a relationship where Charlie feels largely invisible by a Father ’who noticed him only spasmodically’. It seems they know little of his whereabouts at any time ‘Tonight he said he would be in Norwich and yet you never knew’.
When Charlie hides from his Father and the two men, he feels curiosity mixed with fear. He knows he is in trouble and doing wrong and is very scared of what will happen to him if he is discovered. He has to remain hidden but in doing so he hears something more frightening than his own circumstance. His Father talks of leaving without saying goodbye. The men talk of being on duty suggesting they are official – police or military. They are taking him away and won’t let him out of their sight. Charlie knows this is a very bad situation and feels the urge to risk punishment to tell his Father that he loves him. Even at 12, Charlie recognises that something very serious is happening and that he may not see his Father again. There is an attempt at humour from one of the officials saying’ where there’s life ………’ but his voice trails off and his Father ‘tries to laugh’.
I think that Charlie was trying to stop the bullying by stealing the cigarettes and because he felt no love at that time for his Father, who was also absent for much of the time, he felt little guilt in stealing the cigarettes. The fear at the beginning of the story came from the searchlight ‘seeking enemy airships’. The darkness of the house, and the sweeping of the lights makes Charlie ‘despair’. His fear increases when a light shines through the window and a hand tries the door. This spurs Charlie on to try a cigarette. It is as if he has nothing to lose. The fear at the end of the story comes from what those men wanted from his Farther and what they were going to do to him. His Father talks of the shop being sold ‘Else the neighbours’ll be wrecking it’. This gives us the clue that his Father was a collaborator or a spy, as people caught doing either would have their houses and businesses wrecked or burnt down at that time in history.
Life is really hard for Charlie and he wants to make his life easier at school so he gives in to the pressure to steal and smoke cigarettes. I think he hoped this would help him be more popular with the boys at school and help him cope with life without his Father being there for him. I feel sorry for him. I think his Father was mostly to blame for how Charlie felt. His rough time at school and rough time at home were most likely linked.
I think that Charlie did not have to smoke to be popular but he was lost so did it anyway. I think the circumstances in which he stole were understandable. His Mother was doing everything she could but his Father could have shown more love towards Charlie. Everyone needs a Father to support them and give them advice on how to stand up to bullies and on how to behave and Charlie’s Father wasn’t there for him.
In conclusion, I sympathise with Charlie in the story. He has circumstances in his life that mean he has not the strength to stand up to the bullies at school. He feels driven to steal. His Father is absent and he lives in fear. Charlie knows his life has suddenly changed and we leave him ‘surprised and in awe’ at what he has just seen and heard, knowing inside that he may have seen his Father for the last time.