The Manchurian Candidate is a novel by Richard Condon, first published in 1959. It is a political thriller about the son of a prominent U.S. political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for a Communist conspiracy.
The novel has been adapted twice into a feature film of the same title, in 1962 and again in 2004. The 1962 film is faithful to the book; the 2004 remake updates the action and alters characters.
Video The Manchurian Candidate
Plot summary
Major Bennett Marco, Sergeant Raymond Shaw, and the rest of their infantry platoon are captured during the Korean War in 1952. They are taken to Manchuria, and brainwashed into believing Shaw saved their lives in combat - for which Congress subsequently awards him the Medal of Honor.
Years after the war, Marco, now back in the United States working as an intelligence officer, begins suffering the recurring nightmare of Shaw murdering two of his comrades, all while clinically observed by Chinese and Soviet intelligence officials. When Marco learns that another soldier from the platoon also has been suffering the same nightmare, he sets to uncover the mystery and its meaning.
It is revealed that the Communists have been using Shaw as a sleeper agent, a guiltless assassin subconsciously activated by a trigger, in Shaw's case seeing the "Queen of Diamonds" playing card while playing solitaire. Provoked by the appearance of the card, he obeys orders which he then forgets. Shaw's KGB handler is his domineering mother, Eleanor, a ruthless power broker working with the Communists to execute a "palace coup d'état" to quietly overthrow the U.S. government and install her husband, McCarthy-esque Senator Johnny Iselin, as puppet dictator.
Marco discovers the trigger and meets with Shaw at the Central Park Zoo shortly before the party's national convention. He uses the Queen of Diamonds card to draw out the plan for Shaw: he is to shoot the presidential candidate during an upcoming convention in order to win overwhelming support for Senator Iselin, the vice-presidential candidate, and the dictatorial powers he'll request following the assassination. Marco reprograms Shaw, although it is unclear until the final pages whether this is successful. At the convention, Shaw instead shoots his mother and Senator Iselin. Marco is the first authority to reach Shaw's sniper nest, just before Shaw turns the gun on himself.
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Alleged plagiarism
In 1998, software developer C.J. Silverio noted that several long passages of the novel seemed to be adapted from Robert Graves' 1934 novel I, Claudius. Forensic linguist John Olsson judged that "There can be no disputing that Richard Condon plagiarized from Robert Graves." Olsson went on to state that "As plagiarists go, Condon is quite creative, he does not confine himself to one source and is prepared to throw other ingredients into the pot." Jonathan Lethem, in his influential essay The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism, has identified The Manchurian Candidate as one of a number of "cherished texts that become troubling to their admirers after the discovery of their 'plagiarized' elements," which make it "apparent that appropriation, mimicry, quotation, allusion, and sublimated collaboration consist of a kind of sine qua non of the creative act, cutting across all forms and genres in the realm of cultural production."
Film adaptations
The book has been adapted twice into a feature film of the same title. The Manchurian Candidate (1962) is considered a classic of the political thriller genre. It was directed by John Frankenheimer and starred Laurence Harvey as Shaw, Frank Sinatra as Marco, and Angela Lansbury as Eleanor in an Academy Award-nominated performance.
The Manchurian Candidate (2004) was directed by Jonathan Demme, and starred Liev Schreiber as Shaw, Denzel Washington as Marco, and Meryl Streep as Eleanor. It was generally well received by critics, and moderately successful at the box office. The film updated the conflict (and brainwashing) to the Persian Gulf War in 1991, emphasized the science fiction aspects of the story by setting the action in a dystopian near-future (implied to be 2008), had a U.S. corporation (called "Manchurian Global") as the perpetrator of the brainwashing and conspiracy instead of foreign Communist groups, and dropped the Johnny Iselin character in favor of making both Shaw and his mother elected politicians.
Both adaptations discard several elements of the book. The book spends more time describing the brain-washers and the facility in Manchuria where the Americans were held. The head of the project grants Raymond a "gift"; after his brainwashing, he becomes quite sexually active, in contrast to his reserved nature beforehand where he hadn't even kissed his love interest, Jocelyn Jordan.
In the novel, Mrs. Iselin and her son travel abroad, where she uses him to kill various political figures and possibly Jocelyn Jordan's first husband. Rosie, Marco's love interest, is the ex-fiancee of one of his associates handling the Shaw case for Army Intelligence, making things between the couple tense. The movie adaptations also all but omit the novel's portrayal of incest between Raymond and his mother, only hinting at it with a mouth-to-mouth kiss.
As a child, Mrs. Iselin was sexually abused by her father but fell in love with him and idolized him after his early death. Towards the end of the book, as Raymond is hypnotized by the Queen of Diamonds, he reminds her of her father and they sleep together.
The 1962 version does not state outright the political affiliation of Senators Iselin and Jordan (implied to be Republicans), although in the 2004 film the equivalent characters are Democrats. According to David Willis McCullough, Senator Iselin is modelled on Republican senator Joseph McCarthy and, according to Condon, Shaw's mother is based on McCarthy's counsel Roy Cohn.
See also
- Assassinations in fiction
- Conspiracy thriller
- Mind Control
Notes
References
- Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 110. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.
- Condon, Richard. "'Manchurian Candidate' in Dallas", The Nation, December 28, 1963.
- Loken, John. Oswald's Trigger Films: The Manchurian Candidate, We Were Strangers, Suddenly? (2000), pgs. 16, 36.
External links
- Photos of the first edition of The Manchurian Candidate
- Review: The Manchurian Candidate
- The Manchurian Candidate at complete review
- 'Manchurian Candidate' in Dallas 28 December 1963, article by Richard Condon in The Nation about the JFK assassination and The Manchurian Candidate
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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