Jackal (The Day of the Jackal)

The Jackal
The Day of the Jackal character

The Jackal (Edward Fox) practising with his newly customized sniper rifle.
Created by Frederick Forsyth
Portrayed by Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal)
Bruce Willis (The Jackal)
Information
Nickname(s) Jackal, or Chacal
'The Englishman'
Aliases Alexander James Quentin Duggan
Per Jensen
Marty Schulberg
Andre Martin
Occupation Assassin

The Jackal is a fictional character and the anti-hero of the novel The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, which features a storyline centred on an assassin who is contracted by the OAS French terrorist group of the early 1960s, to kill Charles de Gaulle, the President of France. The book was published on 7 June 1971, in the year following Charles de Gaulle's death and became an instant bestseller.[1] In the original 1973 film adaptation, he is portrayed by Edward Fox. A revised version of the character was portrayed by Bruce Willis in the 1997 remake, The Jackal, which had little in common with its original.

Biographical summary

Appearance

The Jackal is described as a tall, blonde Englishman in his early thirties. The character's real name is unknown and details of his background are sketchy. Forsyth explains in the novel, "Alexander Duggan who died at the age of two and a half years in 1931... would have been a few months older than the Jackal in July 1963".[2] The character is written as an Englishman living in Mayfair, London.[3] He is described by Frederick Forsyth as six feet tall, with a muscular build and few distinguishing features, one of which are his cold grey eyes. In the novel, it is stated he likes to wear striped shirts.[4] During the course of the novel he changes his hair colour frequently.[5]

Abilities and skill

The Jackal uses a numbered Swiss bank account to hold the proceeds of his work. He is a careful, sophisticated, meticulous killer who plans every detail of each assassination well in advance. No police force in Europe has ever heard of him, implying that he might change his codename for each of his missions. It is also revealed the Jackal is an acquaintance of a former Congo mercenary called "Louis", whom he met in Katanga. "Louis" acts as a contact who puts the Jackal in touch with a skilled armourer who fabricates the assassin's rifle and a forger who provides false identification papers.

The Jackal speaks fluent French and is so skilled in hand-to-hand combat that he can kill with his bare hands. He is skilled with handguns and a marksman with a rifle. He has managed to remain anonymous except to those select few who recommend him for work. He considers his anonymity his main weapon and prefers to carry out missions alone.[6]

In the novel, the International Police forces hunting him speculate that he may have helped assassinate Rafael Leónidas Trujillo in the Dominican Republic by shooting the driver of his armoured car, causing it to crash.[7]

Prior to being approached by the OAS, the Jackal's only known confirmed kills are of two German rocket scientists in Egypt, who were helping Nasser build rockets to attack Israel. He performed this task at close range using a small-calibre weapon, a crime that left the Egyptian government baffled. The Jackal was paid by a Zionist millionaire in New York, who considered his money "well spent".[8]

Main novel plot

At the beginning of the novel, the Jackal plans to continue working as an assassin until he has enough money to retire. The money paid to the Jackal for the Egyptian kill had been enough to keep him in luxury for several years, but the offer of US$500,000 (about US$ 3.7 million in 2012 dollars) from the OAS to kill De Gaulle gives him the opportunity to retire early. Despite his concern over the "security slackness of the OAS", he finds the job too tempting to turn down.

The assassin invents the codename of the Jackal after he is hired by Rodin and his fellow conspirators. The codename seems to stem from the name of the animal, as both the assassin and the animal are predators. When asked for his choice of codename in the novel, the Jackal replies: "Since we have been speaking of hunting, what about the Jackal? Will that do?".[9]

Taking his usual elaborate precautions, the Jackal arranges a false passport to get him into France and forges identity papers to get him close to De Gaulle. He also steals two passports as contingent identities and buys disguises to match. Unfortunately, France's Action Service is able to kidnap and interrogate an OAS bodyguard, one of the few men who is aware of the plot to kill De Gaulle.

Using OAS agent "Valmy" as a cut-out, the Jackal is kept fully informed of the French police's pursuit of him. This, and his constant changes of identity, enable him to stay ahead of the police until Liberation Day, 25 August 1963, when the Jackal tries to shoot De Gaulle with a rifle he had disguised as an aluminium crutch.

However, De Gaulle moves his head at the last moment, causing the Jackal to miss. As the Jackal prepares for a second shot, he is discovered by French police detective Claude Lebel, who shoots him dead. The Jackal is buried two days later in an unmarked grave; only Lebel attends, anonymously. The death certificate identifies him as "an unknown foreign tourist, killed in a car accident".

The 1973 film

For the 1973 adaptation, some of the Jackal's background details are clarified. The dossier the OAS read from states that the Jackal killed Trujillo and the "fellow in the Congo" (presumably Patrice Lumumba).

Identities

The Jackal's true name is never discovered by the authorities or revealed to the reader. However, he uses the following identities in the course of the novel:

"Carlos The Jackal"

Film portrayals

References

Citations

  1. Day of the Jackal Bestseller
  2. Forsyth 1971, p. 61.
  3. Forsyth 1971, p. 36.
  4. Forsyth 1971, p. 129.
  5. Forsyth 1971, pp. 282, 310.
  6. Forsyth 1971, pp. 49, 56.
  7. Forsyth 1971, pp. 259-260.
  8. Forsyth 1971, pp. 36-37.
  9. Forsyth 1971, p. 61.
  10. Steve Rose (October 23, 2010). "Carlos director Olivier Assayas on the terrorist who became a pop culture icon". The Guardian (London). Retrieved May 12, 2011.

Bibliography

External links