The Outsider and Alienation

Ashenden moves through neutral Geneva as a lone operative, disconnected from both his home country and the people he surveils, while characters like the exiled Mexican general and the stateless Russian revolutionaries embody rootlessness.

Miss King, an exiled English governess dying alone in a foreign hotel, embodies the alienation of those who serve others yet remain isolated.

Ashenden feels lost and solitary in the immensity of Russia, an outsider in a foreign land, struggling with the scale of his task.