Abstract

Abstract:

This essay examines the conceptual nexus between honor, espionage, and the formation of identity through a close narrative reading of the FX drama The Americans, a Cold War period drama set in the 1980s. It complicates the often-uncontested linkage between honor and espionage by examining the show’s portrayal of motherhood within the context of Cold War discourse of mothers as a source of corruption. Such a reading of the complex issues of motherhood, identity, and the challenges of family in The Americans reveals a deeper anxiety at the core of the need to sustain such simple narratives of patriotic honor.

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