Essay Question #14: How does Wein make Julie's love for the Great Game such a significant idea in the novel?
Through her interactions with other characters
Through the theme of deceit
2) Through questioning the validity of the truth during wartime
Julie's "confession" revealed to be a lie (p. 254)
Julie's "confession" was "rotten with error" as Maddie later clarifies. Julie had been leading the Gestapo on a wild goose chase by feeding them false information and protected Maddie and the Resistance through her writing rather than betraying them.
Unexpected alliances with Engel and Penn
1) Julie as an unreliable narrator
Julie's entire role in the war effort depends on her skills to lie and manipulate
Julie's identities as Queenie (wireless operator), Verity (SOE agent), and Eva Seiler (interrogator)
Revelation of connection between Julie (1st pov) and Queenie (3rd pov), done deliberately to foreshadow future instances of deception.
"But she is employing the literary conceits and techniques of a novel... Do you not recognise her in these pages?" (p. 76)
Anna Engel "RED is Engel's colour." (p. 79)
Georgia Penn
"I'm looking for verity." (p. 172)
They were able to intuit each other and communicate through military code in a matter of minutes after meeting each other. This allows Julie to give Penn information about the prison, and tell her that Engel could be a potential ally. Both these things were vital in eventually allowing the Resistance to blow up the Gestapo headquarters.
3) Julie as an incongruous character where she has a sense of humour despite the vulnerability of being held as a Gestapo Prisoner
In part 1,She often talks about her love for flirting, for pretending to be someone she's not and "the Great Game," as she and the BMEIOPG ( Bloody Machiavellian English Intelligence Officer playing God) "It was wonderful flirting with him, all that razor-edged literary banter, like Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing"
Maddie had warned her that she enjoys the Great game too much. She plays the game until the end, flirting with the same German soldiers who will eventually cause her death.
Julie's ego before being captured
"But he (BMEIOPG) was playing God. I noticed, I knew it and I didn't care. It was such a thrill to be one of the archangels, the avengers, the chosen few. " She likes the idea of being in an elite, exclusive club (of spies), which is how she ends up in Ormaie. Also: "Only once in a thousand years is a horse born so well fitted for the game as this our colt."
2) When she met the her superior, the Bloody Machiavellian English Intelligence Officer Playing God (BMEIOPG) at the Green Man pub.
"It was such a thrill to be one of the archangels, the avengers, the chosen few."(p. 107)
Word choice connotes heroism and courage when referring to SOE agents as "archangels", "avengers", and the "chosen few". This shows the exclusivity of the SOE organisation and implies the high calibre of the people selected and recruited to be spies. Queenie was vain and enjoyed the attention of being considered to be especially strong and intelligent to be recruited.
through the perseverance she had endured throughout the novel
"Eva Seiler," he breathed. "You might have spared yourself a great deal of suffering if you had confessed this sooner."
"And of course—I am willing to play. How did he know? How did he know from the start, even before I told him? That I am always willing to play, addicted to the Great Game?"(1.17.XI.43.15)
Julie explains that she is Eva Seiler, a fictitious government liaison to Berlin, at which point this occurs. Yet again, Julie feels that it is crucial that she record her "confession" because it is through the confession that she would be able to share knowledge regarding the Ormaie Gestapo to Damask circuit.
1) The topic of perseverance is demonstrated via both endurance and resolve as Julie and Maddie endure difficult circumstances in occupied France while remaining committed to finishing their assignments.
Julie gets into trouble because of her persistence. She simply lacks the maturity to know when to give up. However, it also benefits her, allowing her to continue battling even after she is defeated.
Ambiguous relation between Julie and von Linden (conflict)
When Julie tricks von Linden into admitting his daughter's name "I paused- count to three- and advanced on him...in a voice of wonder and hurt."
Through the circumstances of captivity in the Ormaie Gestapo HQ, Julie and Engel and brought into contact. Julie's fighting spirit and conviction for a greater cause earns Engel's sympathy, which leads to her collaborating with the Resistance against the Nazis.
Julie hid details and clues for the Resistance to complete her mission and sabotage the Gestapo and Engel helped to highlight them for Maddie to interpret later on.
"Je vous souhaite une bonne nuit." (p. 241)
From a text that encourages the Resistance movement; a political statement from von Linden which hints that he might sympathise with her.
1) Allusion to Peter Pan with Julie as Pan and von Linden as Hook
Metaphor of Peter Pan to liken war to a children's game.
"Von Linden resembles Captain Hook... and I am quite Pan-like..." (p. 5)
Please God. Oh why am I so coarse and thoughtless? Whatever it is now, I dread not being able to finish almost more than I dire (1.25.XI.43.47)
Unfinished sentences give us the shivers because we wonder what interrupted them. Julie is particularly driven to get this confession out of the way since she doesn't want to do something which is unquestionably fairly awful.