Great Britain circa 1950: five years removed from World War II, the country is decimated, and soldiers are returning home from the battlefield. A great empire is beginning to crumble. This island nation has been globally linked with the US through war, and it is not an equal partnership. Great Britain is going to have to learn how to deal in this emerging global climate, nestled between the two super powers of the US and the Soviet Union. James Bond is the foil to Ian Fleming’s Great Britain, a character that helps exemplify the traits of his beloved country.
Bond’s sense of duty and loyalty are key to his character. His loyalty is to queen and country while his sense of duty drives and compels him to finish out the mission. The plot of many a Bond book and flick hinge upon the battle between Bond the man of duty and loyalty, and Bond the man. This is an example of Fleming and other ex-soldiers coming back from war and dealing with the problem of fitting into a ‘normal’ life.
A very basic fact from World War II is the victory achieved by the Allies. James Bond is a winner. The two traits go with each other like ham and eggs. Both have overcome adversity to achieve the final victory. Bond’s tenacity is akin to the tenacious spirit that Ian Fleming sees in the British people.
Ian Fleming was looking for more than just a cheerleader for Britain or a poster boy of the essential British elements. No, James Bond was something more to Fleming. In essay their essay The moments of Bond, Tony Bennett and Janet Woollacott say that Mr. Fleming wrote Casino Royale as a way to take his mind off his impending nuptials. What better way to escape the thought of marriage than by creating a character that goes gallivanting around the globe with a cavalier attitude? Sound distraction, to be sure, but here again Fleming has himself more than a simple ploy for fun.
One of the conflicts in Casino Royale is man versus himself. Bond is torn between his sense of duty and his love for Vesper. In fact, the two cannot exist in the same space. Bond is prepared to resign from the service of the Queen in order to serve another, Vesper. In a way Fleming is exploring his own future, no longer the soldier in the service of the Queen, but a man readying his life for marriage.
Ian Fleming first wrote these stories and created James Bond in the aftermath of World War II. As Jeremy Black puts it, “That it was idealized did not detract from his presentation of Britain at a particular moment.” The Britain of today is more than fifty years removed from those dreary days and Fleming would have to account for these changes in his character. The values of the country and the place in history are drastically different. The Empire is long gone, the reconstruction of the war-ravaged country is complete, and the central enemy to the story, the Soviet Union, is gone as well.
In this sense, one can see that if the country is different then the character who personifies it must be different, too. Ian Fleming could not write the same Bond. James Bond would have to reflect a society that has embraced violence and shirked more social constraints than the comparatively conservative ‘50s and ‘60s would have been wrapped in. Something like the Bond of today.
Works Cited
Bennett, Tony, and Janet Woollacott. The moments of Bond. Information missing
Black, Jeremy. The Politics of James Bond: From Fleming’s Novels to the Big Screen. Westport: Praeger, 2001.
Fleming, Ian. Casino Royale. New York: Penguin Books, 2002.
