This article examines the image of James Bond as a spy-hero in English-language popular culture and analyses the mechanisms behind his creation and subsequent transformation in literary and cinematic traditions.
The aim of the study is to identify the characteristics of the construction of Agent 007 as a cultural archetype of the spy-hero, as well as to determine the artistic, ideological and cultural factors that influenced his evolution from a literary character into a stable, mythologised figure of popular culture.
The methodological basis of the study comprises historical-literary, narrative, hermeneutic and comparative methods, which allow the image of Bond to be examined in the context of the interaction between the text and screen adaptations, as well as in relation to the socio-cultural and ideological conditions of various historical periods.
The study finds that the image of James Bond, first established in Ian Fleming’s novels, originally combines the functions of a professional spy and a cultural symbol, which distinguishes him from traditional models of the spy novel. It is emphasised that the character is constructed as a “glamorous spy,” in whom professional activity is closely linked to the aesthetics of luxury, consumption and a demonstrative lifestyle.
It is noted that the Bond narrative reflects the ideological and cultural changes of the second half of the 20th century, including the transformation of notions of masculinity, national identity and the role of the state. The image of the spy-hero gradually loses its rigid ideological certainty and becomes a more flexible cultural code, capable of adapting to changing social conditions.
It is further established that the image of James Bond is formed at the intersection of the spy novel and popular culture aesthetics, leading to the creation of a hybrid artistic type that combines elements of adventure narrative and cultural myth. A key structural element of the image is the figure of the “gentleman-spy,” which combines traditional British cultural codes with modernised notions of professional efficiency, strengthening the character’s recognisability and the formation of a stable media image within global popular culture. The analysis confirms that the spy-hero, in the form of James Bond, serves as a universal model of the cultural hero, reflecting the contradictions of the modern and postmodern eras — a key element in the study of the transformation of mass culture in the 20th and 21st centuries and the dynamics of the spy image in literature and cinema.
To cite this article: Holub, D. (2026). Ian Fleming’s James Bond: Mythologisation of “007 Formula”. Alfred Nobel University Journal of Philology, 1 (31), 111–133. ISSN 3041-217X (print) · ISSN 3041-2188 (online) · CC BY 4.0 · Submitted 05.12.2025 · Accepted 17.05.2026 · Published 04.06.2026
The phenomenon of Ian Fleming and the character of James Bond created by him has remained one of the most enduring and influential phenomena in global popular culture for over seventy years. The literary and cinematic Bond franchise has long transcended the spy novel genre, evolving into a complex socio-cultural myth in which literature, cinema, ideology, politics, the media, gender models and mechanisms of cultural memory interact.
For a long time, Fleming’s works were viewed by critics primarily as examples of “lower-class” literature aimed at the mass reader. The situation has changed significantly since the second half of the 20th century: numerous studies have demonstrated that the Bondian canon constitutes a complex artistic system in which elements of myth, political ideology, popular literature, cinematic aesthetics and national identity interact.
Like the heroes of ancient myths or chivalric romances, Bond possesses a consistent set of qualities that ensure his recognisability — exceptional abilities, charisma, a sense of belonging to a special mission, a struggle against global evil, and, at the same time, a pronounced human vulnerability. Yet unlike the traditional mythological hero, Agent 007 exists within modern civilisation, closely intertwined with technology, political conflicts, global media and mass consumption. This is what makes him a new kind of superhero.
The Bond franchise functions as a special “narrative machine,” based on the repetition of established plot formulas, binary oppositions and symbolic codes — and it is precisely this repetition that ensures the effect of mythological recognisability.Introduction
In Fleming’s novels, Bond embodies a specific model of “Englishness,” combining traditional notions of British gentlemanliness, imperial consciousness and new forms of heroism from the Cold War era. In post-war Britain — going through a difficult period of losing imperial status and a crisis of traditional values — the figure of Bond became a kind of artistic compensation for national trauma, a symbol of the preservation of British strength, intellect and cultural superiority.
Bondiana also represents a rare example of the virtually simultaneous existence of a literary and a screen hero, who constantly influence one another. The very first film adaptations transformed the character into a visual symbol of the era, while the literary foundation continued to serve as the source of the image’s mythological structure — a unique phenomenon of media synergy in which the character exists simultaneously within literature, cinema, advertising, video games and digital culture.
A scholarly reflection prompted by a new literary character — James Bond, “Agent 007” — whose study became a discipline in its own right, conducted by the Bondologist: a scholar who analyses everything related to the fictional MI6 spy.
One of the first high-profile works devoted to the literary analysis of Fleming’s novels was Umberto Eco’s essay “Narrative Structures in Fleming” in the monograph The Role of the Reader. Eco suggested that, starting with the very first novel Casino Royale (1953), Fleming had already assembled “all the elements for the building of a machine that functions basically on a set of precise units governed by rigorous combinational rules.” Examining this narrative machine, Eco distinguished five levels:
Eco defined the essence of Fleming’s texts as “an unstable patchwork, a tongue-in-cheek bricolage … the result of skillful craftsmanship,” thereby placing Fleming in “high” popular literature. His semiotic approach laid the foundations for bondology and, to a certain extent, for its socio-cultural mythologisation.
Fleming’s first novel — little foreshadowed the emergence of a new cultural icon, yet what followed was less a surprise than an inevitability.
Acquainted with Fleming himself, Snelling placed Bond within the literary context of England (Buchan, “Sapper,” Dornford Yates) and foresaw the franchise’s cinematic future. Published in the final month of Fleming’s life.
An ironic, mythologising commentary that recast Bond not as a “spy” but as a “counter-spy” — a new kind of literary hero.
The five-level “narrative machine,” the reader’s role in shaping the new hero, and the recognition of Eco as a founding Bondologist.
Intertextuality and “narrative codes.” Bond defined as a “mobile signifier” — a figure who survives political and social upheaval while remaining popular.
A cultural history of the films: contemporary Bond has “outgrown his origins … become nothing less than a cultural phenomenon recognized around the world.”
Bond as a barometer of shifting international relations — an integral part of a continuous narrative through which the British define their place in the world.
A biography arguing — through Adlerian psychology — that Bond is an idealized “superman” version of Fleming himself.
The “flexi-narrative” and “attenuated continuity” of the pre-Craig era, read through syuzhet and fabula.
The franchise as a modern epic — “The Bondiad Cycle” — with Bond as an Odyssean “man of many turns.”
A “master myth” whose vital components — the “Bond DNA” of ruthlessness, luxury consumption and heroic archetypes — are read across a multidisciplinary field.
A “flexi-narrative” structure sustains a “just-noticeable” macro-story through recurring nemeses (SPECTRE) and “recognition scenes” with secondary characters like Felix Leiter — keeping the series at “A-feature” status.
Detailed descriptions of people, places and brands create “feigned realism” — a “James Bond syndrome” in which real intelligence and Bond become “co-constitutive,” filling a “public knowledge vacuum.”
The formula survives by mirroring the “relevant political fears of each era” — from Cold War SMERSH to stateless SPECTRE and, later, cyberterrorism and the “War on Terror.”
Through an intersectional feminist lens, torture scenes police and reinforce “hegemonic masculinity”; Bond’s survival becomes a metonymy for Britain’s survival of post-war upheaval.
Bond as a modern “Odyssean” figure whose knowledge is a “literal body of knowledge” — “archipelagic thinking” enacted through “abyssal submergence,” “sliding on surfaces” and “soaring to heights.”
Costuming is intrinsic to identity — a visual signifier of education, affiliation and inclination. The shift from British tailoring to Brioni and Tom Ford marks Bond’s evolution into a global consumerist icon.
Adlerian psychology frames Bond as an idealized “superman” version of Fleming — an expression of his life plan for success and dominance, voiced through “speculative dialogue.”
Espionage role-playing games turn an incomprehensible political situation into a manageable battle between good and evil — a safe space for “individual agency” in an era of nuclear anxiety.
The focus is the evolution of Agent 007 as a specific type of cultural hero — combining the traits of a spy, a gentleman and the bearer of a set of values typical of different historical stages in the development of the Bond myth.
Traces the development of the Bond character against the socio-cultural and ideological contexts of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Identifies the characteristics of the spy-hero’s portrayal and the principles underlying plot structure in the literary bondiana.
Interprets the semantic and value-based connotations associated with Agent 007 across textual and screen adaptations.
Juxtaposes literary sources and their film adaptations to study the transformation of the character across the franchise’s stages.
World literature knows a small set of heroes who exist independently of the works that introduced them — Odysseus, Don Quixote, Hamlet, Robinson, Schweik, Bender. Each gave rise both to new character types and to whole cultural phenomena — the “Odyssey,” “Robinsonades,” “Don Quixotism,” “Hamletism” — concepts more comprehensive than their heroes, enriched by every new era through a clear detachment from the work as a template, yet accompanied by a tenacious memory of it.
It seemed that the days when such a character could be created were long gone. But the release of Casino Royale dramatically changed the situation. Because the publication of each novel was followed by a film adaptation — and because film creates a “unique narrative fabric” that does not so much reproduce reality as is “that very reality” (Lotman & Tsivian) — it became possible to speak of the protagonist’s separation from the novel itself. James Bond has made two appearances: as a character in the novels and on the big screen.
The main character is, in fact, a composite figure who has long since become a mythological icon. Although some researchers regard Fleming as Bond’s prototype, it is clear that the author sought to create a deliberate mythological aura around his hero. One component of that myth is glamour — and the author’s intention, from the first novel, to create not just a spy but a glamorous spy: a character who shattered all existing stereotypes of spies in Western and even Soviet literature.
The secret agent’s grey overcoat has become a kind of cloak under which this hero hides — anonymity that completely separates him from the reader, inviting only empathy.Sarukhanian, 2005, p. 504
Against this backdrop, Bond’s emergence challenged the established clichés. His literary lineage is English: his father, Andrew Bond, comes from an old Scottish family, while his mother is the Swiss-born Monique Delacroix; both are involved in British intelligence, so espionage is a family affair. What happens to the protagonist gives reason to speak of those qualities of “britishness” described as “sympathetic empathy” (following Bakhtin), expressed through gentlemanliness and glamour.
The emergence of this type of hero was shaped by the socio-political events that affected lives across the world: the losses of the Second World War, Churchill’s 1946 Fulton speech marking the start of the “Cold War,” the new relationship with America, and the loss of colonial possessions in India and Pakistan — all of which aggravated the traumatised state of society and its culture. Fleming’s desire to become a writer, drawing on journalism and intelligence work, was shaped by these trends — a light-hearted cover, he claimed, for a very serious undertaking: the creation of a new literary archetype for English literature.
In creating Bond, Fleming deliberately departed from the traditional English gentleman, taking a step beyond Conan Doyle’s gentleman-detective. According to Robert Cross, “Fleming created Bond … as a way of addressing the very real anger and anxiety he felt at the time about Britain’s tarnished image and reputation.” Two incidents loomed: the Cambridge Spy Ring, which undermined Britain’s reputation in the eyes of US intelligence, and the figure of the Duke of Windsor, whose conduct tarnished the very title of gentleman.
In emphasising the combination, the author highlighted the variations on gentlemanliness Bond introduced into culture — a social hierarchy Agent 007 defines for himself:
Each subsequent novel is characterised by Bond’s inevitable struggle with the gentleman’s code. In Moonraker, the action turns on the exclusive card club “The Blades” — a bastion of old gentlemanly tradition — where Bond is set the task of catching the millionaire Hugo Drax cheating at bridge. In setting such a task, Fleming knowingly violated the rule of “fair play,” creating instead the character of a “flawed gentleman” — suggesting that villains must be fought by unconventional methods.
Bond’s patriotism is integral to his British identity — “a conservative hero, a defender of the realm, a staunch patriot and … an upholder of monarchy” (Chapman). He reads only The Times; he is sentimentally attached to the old five-pound note; in Thunderball he loathes tea, “that flat, soft, time-wasting opium of the masses.” However rebellious his spirit, he never questions Britain’s power: “You underestimate the English. They may be slow, but they get there.”
And yet, as Chapman notes, “Bond himself is not the quintessential English gentleman hero.” The most frequent adjective used to describe him is “cruel.” Fleming deliberately created a gentleman “with a flaw” — a new English gentleman to kill off the old, treacherous and discredited one — with the mission, as Cross writes, “to restore British honour in the eyes of the world.”
“He earned £1,500 a year … and he had a thousand a year free of tax of his own … he could live very well on his £2000 a year net.”
There is no consistent female archetype — “the Bond girl … is not a woman for all times, but merely for the duration of the mission.”
Bond showed his true gentlemanly nature only towards Countess Teresa di Vicenzo (in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), when he asked for her hand — but he could not start a family with the woman he loved, as she was murdered on their wedding day. His ideal woman is sketched in a few strokes: “Gold hair. Grey eyes. A sinful mouth. Perfect figure.” He was loyal only to Britain.
Soviet agents — the threat of the early espionage saga.
A stateless criminal organisation — evil decoupled from a single state.
The “War on Terror” and new global anxieties keep the formula relevant.
Glamour is not merely beauty, luxury or style; it is an effect — “an escape, an illusion, an ideal, a dream.” As Gundle argues, it is “a quintessentially modern phenomenon … an enticing and seductive vision” designed to dazzle.
On the surface, Casino Royale appears to be a variation on the spy novel: Agent 007 is tasked with neutralising the diabolical Le Chiffre, the USSR’s most valuable agent. But that is where the similarities end. The events take place in the picturesque resort town of Royale — and from the very first pages the reader is immersed not in a typical spy atmosphere but in a sophisticated one. For a super-spy, luxury is his cover; “it is a prerequisite for his activities to remain secret.”
Three principal components compose James Bond’s glamour:
The casino, the resort, the “Negresco baroque” of Royale — a milieu of nobility and celebrity, “a strong whiff of Victorian elegance and luxury.”
The carefully composed portrait of the hero — every detail a “system of authorial cues” shaping a mythologised perception.
An integral part of his glamorous life and his mythologised persona — for Mademoiselle Lynd, beauty and composure intertwined.
Examining these components, one meets the recurring attributes that later became the “trends of the James Bond brand.”
“One of the last of the 4½ litre Bentleys with the supercharger by Amherst Villiers” — bought almost new in 1933, a battleship-grey convertible coupé driven “with an almost sensual pleasure.”
The immaculate black tuxedo — a tribute to English dandyism after Beau Brummell, “the inventor of the English gentleman’s style.”
Caviar, a small tournedos with sauce Béarnaise, half an avocado with French dressing, and the Blanc de Blanc Brut 1943 — “behaving like a millionaire.”
The signature cocktail, named for Miss Lynd — “shaken not stirred,” the phrase well-known to all fans of the Bond style.
“Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel.”
In Casino Royale, Bond decides to ask Vesper to marry him — but she turns out to be a double agent working for the Reds and poisons herself to avoid the SMERSH agents. “Glamorous people are not rooted but rather are constantly on the move” — and this philosophy of life appeals to a daring, self-assured and utterly seductive British intelligence agent.
In Fleming’s fictional world — and soon afterwards on screen — the name James Bond transcends a mere proper name, acquiring the status of “the nomination of the face” (Syritsa): a specific symbol characterising the created fictional world as glamorous. The portrait exhibits a “system of authorial cues,” in which every detail has its own significance — for physical beauty is one of the key components of glamour.
Fleming introduces Bond through the lens of the actor Hoagy Carmichael, mythologised by the public — a cinematic device that fosters a mythologised perception while counteracting the perceived unattractiveness of English literary gentlemen: “He is very good-looking. He reminds … rather of Hoagy Carmichael,” immediately tempered by “there is something cold and ruthless in his eyes.” The actor’s striking resemblance to Fleming layers a biographical detail onto the literary and cinematic strata.
With the thin vertical scar down his right cheek the general effect was faintly piratical … his grey-blue eyes looked calmly back with a hint of ironical inquiry and the short lock of black hair which would never stay in place slowly subsided to form a thick comma above his right eyebrow.Fleming · Casino Royale
His boss, Vesper Lynd, agrees that Agent 007 is “a good-looking chap” — yet the focus falls on his professional qualities: “He’s a dedicated man. He thinks of nothing but the job on hand … But he’s an expert and there aren’t many about.” Hence the warning — “don’t fall for him” — and the verdict on the handsome spy: “I don’t think he’s got much heart.”
“Living like Bond” means finding yourself in the thick of the most incredible adventures — speeding off in a posh Bentley to rescue the enchanting Vesper Lynd, fighting a dangerous adversary, and still emerging victorious. He seems dangerous and mysterious — and this is part of his glamour.The nomination of the face
His elegance, his romantic entanglements, and the spectacle of his triumphs and defeats — in accordance with Bakhtin’s view that the central task is to glorify the present — keep the public constantly fascinated by the figure of Bond.
From the first novel, Bond was conceived not as a traditional spy character but as a specially constructed “glamorous spy” — a deliberate shift from the functional figure to a hero embedded within fashion, luxury, gambling and elite leisure.
Bond has no single prototype; he is conceived as a cultural model rather than a realistic type, geared from the outset towards mass appeal and cultural recognition.
Bond inherits and transforms the ideal of the English gentleman — retaining patriotism, loyalty and institutional values, yet carrying the internal contradiction of a changing British identity.
Associated with British tradition yet linked to the American mythological model of the hero, Bond is a hybrid operating at the intersection of cultural codes and literary traditions.
The transition to cinema does not undermine the image — it reinforces its symbolic significance, reproducing and actively reinterpreting it with new visual and behavioural codes.
Through Agent 007, shifts in perceptions of international relations, British identity and the UK’s role are revealed — the hero becomes a mechanism for the cultural representation of historical reality.
The image of James Bond constitutes a dynamic cultural construct shaped at the intersection of literary tradition, cinematic interpretation and popular culture — his evolution from a spy character to a mythologised hero reflecting changing notions of heroism, identity and the role of the individual within history.
Daryna Holub · Alfred Nobel University Journal of Philology, 2026, 1(31)