Foil

Character Role Analysis

Harry Gold and Ted Hall

Harry Gold and Ted Hall are both spies sending classified information to the KGB, but their styles and their reasons are so very different.

Gold becomes a spy because he feels like he owes it to a friend, and then he gets sucked in too deep to be able to back out. Because he isn't into it for ideological reasons, Gold's more of a reluctant participant who ends up really struggling with his conscience. Hall, on the other hand, reaches out to the KGB on his own, believing deep down in his adolescent heart that the U.S. shouldn't be the only nation with an atomic bomb.

The major difference between the two is revealed when the FBI starts to hound them after they decode the KGB messages: Gold is a sweaty mess, who eventually caves and tells the FBI everything, while Hall calmly buckles down and continues to admit nothing because he knows they need a confession to convict him. Guess who gets a ton of jail time and guess who doesn't?

By comparing these two men, it helps differentiate their characters, and it reveals how dissimilar their experiences were.