As soon as Bond arrives in Jamaica, a clear coding of animal attributes begins to color the story. These animal codes reflect just how civilized Bond is, and how very foreign the wild is to him. As Bond flies into Jamaica, he describes it as a “big green turtle-backed island” (32). He greets his native sidekick, Quarrel, by shaking his “paw” (34). He quickly notices the horse-drawn carts and donkeys littering the area. Bond is aware that he is out of his element. When he first arrives at his hotel, to better acclimate himself with his new surroundings, Bond strips off his old clothes and showers to wash away the “last dirt of big-city life” (37). Later, while sleeping in his hotel room, Bond awakes to find a centipede crawling up his body. Although he is able to remain still until the centipede crawls onto the pillow, he shakes uncontrollably and vomits after the experience. This reaction exhibits Bond's fear of the wild that he will soon be facing.
Bond's reignition of manhood begins when he meets Honey. This is not surprising if one is familiar with Fleming's works. Bond is a man who thrives on beautiful women and a good martini. Bond's life drive switches on when he feels he has a woman to protect. Honey is that woman in Fleming's Doctor No. When he first sees Honey on the beach at Crab Key, Bond uses both masculine and animal terms to describe her. He says that she has “more powerful muscles than is usual in a woman,” and that her “behind was almost as firm and rounded as a boy's” (79). Bond is immediately excited by this wild, naked woman with a knife at her hip. “Her imperious attitude and her quality of attack were exciting,” he says. “The way she had reached for her knife to defend herself! She was like an animal whose cubs are threatened” (83). Bond also describes her as “a dog that nobody wants to pet” (83). Throughout the novel, he will refer to her as “a principal girl dressed as Man Friday” (84), an “Ugly Duckling” (109), a “poor little bitch” (92), and an “extraordinary Girl Tarzan” (120). Nearly every time Bond takes a moment to look at Honey, to comment on how he views her, he uses either masculine or animal terms in the description. Bond appreciates the animal instincts that are exhibited by this woman. In fact, she will have to help him find his own before he can escape from Crab Key alive.
Honey proves to be an asset on Bond's excursion, as she provides helpful tips on navigating the island and hiding from their pursuers. Honey becomes the wild, animal part of Bond that he needs to survive. Once they are captured and separated by Doctor No, Bond must use his own animal instincts to prevail. He does this by thinking of Honey often – four times in the course of Doctor No's death trial, to be exact. His greatest hope is to come out of the course alive so that he may rescue the girl, who has been taken away and tied up naked on the mountain for crabs to eat. Thinking of Honey reminds Bond of the animal nature that lies within himself. When he first begins the trial, Bond is injured by the wire grille that attacks him like a snake. After he crawls through the ventilation shaft to find heat as his next opponent, he tells himself to think of the girl for strength. Once he makes it through the fiery shaft, his animal instincts have fully risen to the surface:
Bond's lips drew back from his teeth and he snarled into the darkness. It was an animal sound. He had come to the end of his human reactions of pain and adversity. Doctor No had got him cornered. But there were animal reserves of desperation left and, in a strong animal, those reserves are deep (193).
Next, Doctor No uses nature against Bond, (as he is often inclined to do) this time putting thirty giant tarantulas in his way. After stabbing them all to death, Bond once again thinks of Honey for courage. Bond's next challenge is against the giant squid, which seems to molest him at the end of his trial. He is subject to the “hard kiss of the suckers” walking up his thigh and hip (202). After Bond plunges his spear into the squid, it empties its ink sac at him. Despite the fact that Bond has been in and out of consciousness, and is badly burned and bruised, he has managed to use his animal instincts to overcome Doctor No's death trial. Now, in order to finish the job and take out Doctor No, Bond thinks of Honey once more. He then has the strength to wash up and continue.
After burying Doctor No under a pile of guano dust, Bond runs into Honey and learns that she has escaped the crabs safely and is on her way to kill Doctor No herself with a screwdriver. Once he learns that she is fine, his mind reverts to focusing on his own pain: “He ran automatically. He hardly thought of the girl” (215). When Honey explains to Bond that she escaped the crabs by having no fear of them, he says, “I wish to heaven I'd known that. I thought you were being picked to pieces” (221). In fact, without thinking that Honey was in danger, Bond may not have found the life drive that he needed to survive.
Bond redeems himself for his previous failed mission by reigniting his manhood on this one. However, it took a woman to show him what he was missing. The climax of this transformation occurs once Bond and Honey return to Jamaica, as Honey cleans and cares for Bond's battle scars. “Hold tight, my darling. And cry. It's going to hurt,” she tells him (229). As Honey applies the medicine, Bond allows “tears of pain” to “run out of his eyes and down his cheeks without shame” (229). This beautiful scene exhibits Bond's rugged masculinity through the wounds, but also emasculates him by putting Honey in control. Bond concludes his trip by sending M a snarky telegram, telling him to “kindly inform armorer Smith and Wesson ineffective against flame-thrower” (229). The message is his way of reclaiming his masculinity, of telling M that he's back in the game. But while he has reclaimed his life drive, his animal instinct, his masculinity, the tale ends with Honey demanding “slave-time” from Bond. The emasculation of Bond at the end of the novel brings the tale full circle.
Work Cited
Fleming, Ian. Doctor No. New York: Penguin, 1958.
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