Mini Specialist Study: The Day of the Jackal

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Mini Specialist Study: The Day of the Jackal

This is a specialist study of the novel “The Day of the Jackal” by the superb storyteller Frederick Forsyth.

The novel itself is weird, to say the least, but weird in a very “right” way. I enjoyed reading it and if this doesn’t drive you to read it yourself then I’ve done a very poor job of explaining how entertaining it is.

The novel is an account of how the “Jackal”, hired by Colonel Marc Rodin of the O.A.S., planned and carried out the assassination of President Charles De Gaulle of France.

Not until the Jackal accepts the commission is the reader told that De Gaulle is regarded as being “the safest person on the planet”. With this point, the book is confirming how precise and cold-blooded the “Jackal” is in trying to assassinate such an important and protected character as De Gaulle.

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From the book’s title you are intrigued to understand ‘Who’ the Jackal is. Yet the novel starts by keeping the identity of the Jackal a mystery. In the early stages of this novel the author keeps us in the dark, actually, to be more precise, he doesn’t explain what the Jackal is like; all the information given is that he is a”Blonde Englishman” with a serious interest in very important political characters, and mainly in how to “disable them indefinitely”.

As you read through the novel you begin to understand that the Jackal is more of a machine than anything else. ...

This is a preview of the whole essay