Discuss the importance and presentation of Mr Hayward in Michael Frayn's Spies
Discuss the importance and presentation of Mr Hayward in Spies
Mr Hayward is presented to the reader via his various roles in the novel Spies, as a father to Keith, husband to Mrs Hayward, his place in ‘wartime’ Britain and as the ultimate ‘leader’ of the Hayward household. On one occasion he is even described by Stephen as ‘God the father’. As with all the characters within the novel, Mr Hayward’s initial façade and appearance of perfection is gradually broken down throughout the bilungsroman to eventually expose him as the violent controlling bully that he really is. Whilst the image of Mr Hayward as an ideal father is explicitly asserted by Stephen in the earlier part of his recollections, his implicit understanding of the nature of his best friend’s father is evident from the outset, he ‘never spoke to him..or even looked directly at him, perhaps because he was too frightened.’ But despite this, Frayn draws out the exposure of Mr Hayward to parallel with Stephen’s evolving conception of the character which demonstrates to the reader the importance Mr Hayward plays in Stephen’s maturation and understanding of life.
It is in his role as a father that we are first introduced to Mr Hayward, of course, he is presented within the picture of perfection Stephen creates of the whole family unit. However, the way in which he describes Mr Hayward and the characteristics he identifies seem to have sinister connotations. We are alerted to his ‘awful thin smile’ and constant ‘whistling’ of an ‘infinitely complex, meandering tune that never reached a resting place’, this whistling could be considered the marking of his presence, interestingly his presence is otherwise absent as we see and hear very little of him. This of course comes in stark contrast to the way in which Uncle Peter’s ‘very absence’ is felt ‘a kind of presence’, demonstrating that the two men are worlds apart. Whilst Stephen appears to be disappointed with and disregard his own father, the ‘mild natured furry animal’, his opinion is soon forced to change when for the first time in the novel he is confronted by Mr Hayward whom he likens to ‘an ogre in his cave’, Stephen profoundly declares that it is ‘by some improbable stroke of kindly providence he’s not my father’. It is refreshing for the reader to witness Stephen’s apparent reversal in his feelings toward Mr Hayward, and this strengthens or perhaps even propels his later feelings towards his own father in whom he discovers a ‘tenderness’ he ‘can’t remember in him before’.