Fall of Troy

The Fall of Troy serves as Jubal Harshaw’s deliberately extravagant benchmark for the story about to break: he tells Larry that a delayed television setup will miss the biggest story since Troy fell. The allusion compresses urgency into a familiar historical comparison, while the scene’s immediate stakes are whether the government will publicize Valentine Michael Smith’s return or send officers after him again.

The Allusion in Context

Harshaw makes the comparison in a whispered aside to Larry during his telephone conversation with Joseph E. Douglas. He has just suggested that the Secretary General issue a news release announcing that the Man from Mars has returned from his retreat in the Andes and is vacationing in the Poconos, so that the government will not appear to have been taken by surprise. Douglas leaves the screen, and Harshaw cannot tell whether he has gone to arrange the release or to set the authorities against them again.

A Measure of Urgency

With the telephone’s sound pickup covered, Harshaw admits that he is bluffing and does not know what Douglas is doing. He sends Larry to get Tom Mackenzie and warns him to make the setup work at once: otherwise, he will miss the biggest story since the Fall of Troy. The reference is not a report about Troy itself; it magnifies the anticipated news while grounding the urgency in concrete circumstances—a stalled broadcast arrangement, uncertain government action, and the danger that police may already be nearby.

Narrative Function

The historical comparison makes the scene’s suspense hinge on competing kinds of delay. Harshaw is keeping Douglas engaged on the phone, but he cannot verify whether that tactic is buying time or helping the government act against them. Larry’s errand turns the allusion into a practical deadline: the potential scoop matters only if the broadcast setup is ready before the crisis overtakes it. Troy thus names the imagined scale of the news, while Harshaw’s uncertainty preserves the scene’s immediate risk.