Spies Themes

Throughout the story, it is fairly evident that Keith and the Haywards are better-off financially than Stephen and the Wheatleys. However, this class difference is not simply an arbitrary distinction; the gap in wealth between the two families defines all aspects of Stephen’s relationship to Keith. More significantly, Frayn allows the reader to see, through young Stephen’s eyes, how class permeated the social arrangement and attitudes in wartime London.

From the start, the wealth of…

The narrative of Spies relies entirely on the memory of a 70+ year-old narrator, Stephen Wheatley, who returns to his childhood town and tries to recall the events that happened there almost six decades ago. His narration jumps between two distinct periods of time, the past and the present, which immediately considers the role of time as a force of change, resolution, and even unresolved problems. The narrative thus introduces two major “problems” that…

Frayn specifically sets Spies in a London cul-de-sac during the second World War, what Stephen calls “the Duration,” to show how the war affects every aspect of life in the Close. Immediately evident in the novel is the war’s physical effect on the provincial landscape of the town. On his return to the Close, Stephen initially makes a note of how even the sky is different from when he was a child, when it was…

The whole of Frayn’s novel, Spies, is built upon secrecy. Beginning with Keith’s mother’s secret affair with Uncle Peter, the story accumulates a myriad of secrets over time: Stephen and Keith’s secret game of spying on Mrs. Hayward, Stephen and Barbara’s secret kiss, Stephen and Keith’s mother’s secret collaborations, Geoff and Deirdre’s secret rendezvous, the Wheatleys’ secret German and Jewish origins, and even the Berrills’ mother’s secret “boyfriend.” Although…