The Day of the Jackal

After accepting the assignment to assassinate Charles de Gaulle, the Jackal’s first step is to amass a collection of false documents. Ironically, the man whose name is never revealed in the novel has more documentation than anyone else. His variety of documents symbolizes his shifting identity. He can be the Danish priest, the American student, the French war veteran, or an Englishman who actually died in childhood. None of these identities is the real Jackal, but the documents suggest that they are more of a true identity than anything else that the audience can latch onto. The false documents symbolize the unknowability of the Jackal’s identity, to the point where the audience can only ever refer to the Jackal by his codename, while the other characters interact with Alexander Duggan, Pastor Jensen, Marty Schulberg, or Andre Martin. The Jackal is all of these men and none of them. His false documents function as a symbol of his unknowability, symbols which contain a deeper truth about his slippery anonymity.

The attempt to track the Jackal is conducted through the medium of identifying false identities. These documents symbolize the fine line between success and failure, as well as the fine line between life and death.