The lineage of fictional amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne can be traced to Raymond Shaw, protagonist of The Manchurian Candidate. Like Shaw, Bourne “is both the agent and the victim of a government program designed to turn him into a lethal human weapon.” Unlike the 1959 version of Shaw, who is the victim of an outside enemy, Bourne’s dilemma is a result of the U.S.’s own actions, policies, and agencies. He is a tool and weapon of the U.S. security state itself and the intrusive memories that plague him, but always remain just out of reach, are allegories for the details of an already always
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