The Sympathizer Sparknotes

The Sympathizer follows a nameless narrator, a communist spy working as a captain for a South Vietnamese General, beginning just before the fall of Saigon in 1975. The narrator is destined to be divided as a half-Vietnamese, half-French, American Educated, Communist sleeper spy working for the anti-Communists, raised with only his mother’s love. He most often plays the role of a loyal captain, who happens to be a spy, but he constantly reminds himself that the role is meant to be his reality. He is like his rucksack, a gift from his American friend Claude, with the false bottom, where he hides his spy gear; he has a image the world sees and the secrets of his inner self, and his persona, hidden within, and the rucksack literally holds his manuscript,
As the narrative progresses, Jack loses his grasp to maintain his self image as his life challenges accept fear; as a result, the story grows unhinged as he questions the implications of choosing a reality. After Babette admits to sleeping with Willie Mink for Dylar, he becomes obsessive and unable to fully control himself, finding release in nearly killing Mink. Fear never leaves Jack’s narrative, but it fluctuates after Jack is infected by the airborne toxic event, despite the uncertainty of an effect. Dylar is Jack’s hope to escape death, much like the self he projects covers his true self, because death is the one fact of life no one evades. Sadly, Dylar only worsens one’s grasp on reality, as shown in Mink’s insensible trance at his roach motel. Leading to a decline of sanity, Jack has two personal identities, a professor and an alternative. As a professor, Jack looks to reach Hitler’s public persona’s size and stature; he tries to be mysterious, stern, and exceptionally intelligent to account for his inadequate core self, but none of those traits are accurate depictions of his self. Outside of work, he tries to exude an air of knowledge and understanding for his family’s sake, and he assures himself this perception is truthful. Both personas originate from Jack’s
They all present unreliable first person views of experiences filled with regrets, mistakes, contradictions, lies, and fear. Readers pity Stevens for his blindness to the subtleness of communication, but Jack is also blind to much of life’s realities, without the lovableness to pity him. Contrastingly, the unnamed narrator is hyper observant of his surroundings; hence, he uses situations to his advantage or cleverly retaliates, like when he plays along with the racist head of Oriental Studies. Unlike Stevens, the unmanned narrator and Jack have more at stake if their identities falter, due to Stevens lack of connections and his profession; additionally, the unnamed man’s life is literally always at risk in some capacity, and Jack faces a toxic spill and tries to kill a man. Plus, the unnamed man and Jack have people they love that they need to consider. Mainly, betrayal of self results from the three protagonists’ fabricated personas. Each novel closes with the narrator existing in a liminal space, where the path they will follow is unclear; correspondingly, the novels’ ends are ambiguous because life is not just black or white, but each man has the choice to change their role in life. Still, the protagonists