Term Paper on the Power and the
Glory
Henry
Graham Greene was born on October 2, 1904 in Berkhamsted, England. He had a hard
childhood, and he attempted suicide on a number of occasions. His psychoanalyst
suggested that he look to writing as a way to deal with his anxious emotions. At
Balliol College, Oxford, he studied modern history, worked as the editor for a
campus newspaper and lived a somewhat degenerate lifestyle. After graduation he
went to work at The Nottingham Journal, and met his future wife, Vivien Dayrell-Browning.
She would be instrumental in his conversion to Catholicism, which took place in
February of 1926. Though it is said that at first he only converted in order to
win the affection of Vivien, he eventually became very deeply and acutely
interested in his adopted religion. (Greene, 1988)
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The Power and the Glory is a simple one. It is the story of a priest who tries
to do his faith while looking for safety in the anti-religious age in Mexico. He
trips from Carmen from side to side various villages and back to Carmen again,
with the Lieutenant repeatedly in pursuit of him. Imprisonment and discharge
take him away from Carmen a second time. Again, he moves from village to village
performing his pastoral duties until he is arrested and brought back to Carmen,
where he is shot by the rival, the Lieutenant.
Although the plot line is a simple one, the focus at the back the plot is much
deeper. Greene examines the question of a person's sin versus his/her release.
The Whisky Priest has lived under awful conditions in Mexico for years in order
to carry out God's will. He persists to practice his faith and minister to the
people in malice of being half-starved and beaten by police. In fact, his death
is caused by his determination to perform his priestly duties. The story is one
of pursuit in which the Lieutenant is chasing the Priest. Emblematically, it is
the government's attempt to obliterate the Church. The Lieutenant succeeds in
capturing him and killing him, but he does not succeed in destroying the Church.
At the end, another unnamed priest appears to carry on his religious duties.
The Priest's journey is not only an effort to escape from the Lieutenant, but an
attempt to keep alive his religious function. The Priest is burdened with sin.
Through his journey and encounters, he tries to appreciate the nature of evil
and comes to the conclusion that he is the most undeserving person in the world.
After committing adultery and staying in the prison cell, he loses his pride.
His new humanity and love for his fellow man make him unable of judging people
as sinners. He also learns to view himself as a coward, because he has fear of
physical pain and death. Had he really been a coward, he would not have risked
his life for his fellow man all through the novel. In fact, the Priest goes to
do the last rites for the dying Gringo even although he is fully aware that a
trap has been set up for his capture. He freely goes with the Lieutenant, but
wants to confess and receive absolution before dying. Padre José, not the
Lieutenant, denies him that chance. The Priest is shot without confessing; but
he has realized that mere ritual is worthless.
The novel analyzes the challenges of faith, religious ritual, sin, confession,
forgiveness and martyrdom. Graham Greene explores these issues by depicting a
variety of people in the novel, ranging from priests and passionate believers to
nihilists and non-believers. Even among those who are religious, there are
various grades. Those who have blind faith without any sympathetic, such as the
Indian woman who is determined to bury her dead child near a church and Luis'
mother who thrives on religious misinformation. Those who perform all the
rituals of the Church, with a look of piety, but are devoid of human feelings,
such as the devout lady in the prison. Those who are rich and for whom religion
means nothing more than plentiful celebrations; and those who are genuine in
their faith and have a rational approach to religion. Unquestionably, religion
means power, not only to the priests, but also to the different levels of
laymen. Religion is also permanent, as evidenced in the look of the priest at
the end of the novel, in spite of all the government's efforts to rid the
country of religious figures. The novel, from side to side the story of the
Whisky Priest, also deals with martyrdom in a modern setting. The Priest is
guilty of pride, lust, adultery, and despair, but is regretful about his sins.
He very much wants to escape from Mexico, but his priestly duties
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come first. Each time he is about to succeed in "breaking out,” someone asks for
his help, and with kindness, he responds. His demeanors baptisms, confessions,
and masses. He goes with the child to attend his sick mother, and he goes to the
Gringo to administer his Last Rites. As he performs his religious duties, he
slips further and further away from escape and closer and closer to predictable
death. When he is shot, the reader must decide if he dies as a martyr.
It is the storyteller's task to draw out sympathy and a measure of considerate
for those who lie outside the boundaries of State Approval. The events of the
book take place in one of the Mexican states, someplace in the Tabasco region.
In the past the time of the plot is 1930's. As the book shows, this historical
period was very difficult for the country, since it was the time of "great
reforms", i. e. the time of passage from the monarchism to communism. The
beginning of this reform was the Mexican upheaval, which took place in 1910.
Also the book tells a lot about the climate of Mexico. It is very hot and dry.
The landscape, like one on the cover, is very characteristic for Mexico.
Coral Fellows, Brigida and the boy are just a few of the children who play key
roles in this novel. In a land of violence and harassment, where a sense of
community seems to have all but left, the question of what will become of the
next generation looms large. The lieutenant seems to be motivated by a wish to
help children avoid the drawbacks of his own childhood by wiping out religion.
He cannot completely eliminate the memory of religion from the minds of the
older generation, but perhaps the work he and his fellow officers have done will
efficiently rid the next generation of all religious sentiment. The priest is
consumed with be anxious over the fate of his daughter, Brigida, fearing that
she has already been altered for the worse by the cruelty of the world. Thus,
children seem to symbolize both a future that is very much hanging in the
balance, and a present blamelessness that may be threatened, or even enduringly
damaged, by the conflicted times in which they live.
The Power and The Glory, first published more than fifty years ago in a
self-effacing English edition of 3,500 copies, is Graham Greene's masterpiece,
his most popular book. Based upon less than two months spent in Mexico in March
and April of 1938, the novel of Greene is his "least English", holding only a
few minor English characters. The novel reflects the author's interest in Mexico
and his experience as a resident of that country. The first three paragraphs,
where he gives you camera shots of the place, why it is astonishing. (Wyndham &
Greene, p. 34)
Greene's realism showed me the Mexico, than never seen before. But the most
attractive thing, from my point of view is that the story happened many times in
many places before and after the look of the book. In The Power and the Glory
Greene illustrates God's compassion as it defies the violent, atheistic
government through the faith of his flawed, but still faithful people. And as
the collectivism begins to spread all over the world, Greene's book assures the
reader that there is a God, who will never leave us, and the evil will by no
means win him. The mood of the novel is gloomy. The picture of the world as
presented from side to side Mexico is chaotic, and sin is ever there. Vultures,
snakes, hyenas, beetles, turkeys, and sharks are all unpleasant creatures causal
to the mood. The physical features of the land are made up of swamps and dark
forests with creatures prowling about. Fever, blinding heat, poverty, hunger,
and thirst improve the gloom. Decay, squalor, human degradation, and fear are
tinted, but there is a ray of hope and that is the possibility of love. (Greene,
page 245)
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At the beginning of the novel, the priest is in the offing for a boat that will
take him out of the capital city. He is on the run from the police because
religion has been forbidden in his state and he is the last residual clergyman.
While talking to a man named Mr. Tench, he is called to a dying woman's house
and misses his boat. He hides out in a barn on the parkland of a plantation
owner, befriending the owner's daughter. Forced to move on, he heads to a
village in which he used to live and work as pastor. There he meets Maria, a
woman with whom he has had a brief affair, and Brigida, his unlawful daughter.
He spends the night in the town and wakes before dawn to say mass for the
villagers. The lieutenant a sworn enemy of all religion arrives at the end of
mass, leading a group of policemen in look for of the priest, and the priest
goes out to the town square to face his enemy. No one in the village turns him
in, however, and the lieutenant does not understand that he has found the man he
is looking for. Instead, the lieutenant takes a hostage, whom he says he will
carry out if he finds that the villagers have been lying to him about the
whereabouts of the wanted man.
The priest heads to the town of Carmen, and on the way he meets a man known just
as the mestizo. Uninvited, the mestizo accompanies the cleric on his journey,
and it very soon becomes clear that he is an unreliable figure, and most likely
paying attention in following the priest so that he can turn him in and collect
the reward money. The priest finally admits that he is, indeed, a priest. But
the mestizo, who has become excited by the second day of their journey jointly,
does not have the strength t o follow the priest when he veers off course. The
priest knows that if he enters Carmen he will certainly be captured, and he lets
the mestizo ride on towards the town by himself.
The priest then backtracks to the capital city. He is in masquerade, wearing a
drill suit, and he tries to procure a bottle of wine so he can say mass. He
meets a beggar who takes him to a hotel and initiates him to a man who says he
can supply him with the wine. The man arrives and sells the priest a bottle of
wine and a bottle of brandy. But, taking benefit of the priest's offer to share
a drink with him, the man proceeds to drink the entire bottle of wine, thwarting
the priest's plan. The priest then leaves the hotel but is wedged with the
bottle of brandy by a state official. After a long chase through the streets of
the town, during which the priest ineffectively attempts to take sanctuary at
the house of Padre Jose, he is caught and taken to jail. In jail he speaks with
the prisoners, confessing to them that he is a priest. A devout woman, in jail
for having religious articles in her home, argues with the priest. The next day,
the priest is ordered to clean out the cells and, while doing so, meets the
mestizo again. But the mestizo chooses not to turn the priest in to the
authorities. The priest has another face-to-face come across with the
lieutenant, but again goes unrecognized, and is allowed to go free.
The priest spends a night at the deserted estate of the Fellows and then moves
on to a forsaken village. He meets an Indian woman whose son has been shot and
killed by the gringo, an American outlaw who is also on the run from police. He
accompanies the woman to a burial ground and then leaves her there. Exhausted,
and almost totally drained of the will to live, the priest reels on, finally
coming upon a man named Mr. Lehr who informs him that he is out of danger,
having crossed the border into a neighboring state where religion is not
outlawed.
After spending a few days at the home of Mr. Lehr, the priest arranges to leave
for Las Casas. But before he can depart, the mestizo arrives, telling him that
the gringo has been fatally wounded by the police and is asking for someone to
come and hear his acknowledgment. The priest, aware that he is walking into a
trap, lastly agrees to escort the mestizo back across the border. There he meets
the gringo, who refuses to repent for his sins and then dies. Then, as expected,
the lieutenant arrives and takes the priest into care. The two men have a long
conversation about their beliefs and then, when the tempest front clears; the
lieutenant takes the priest back to the capital city for his assessment. On the
night before the priest is to be executed, the lieutenant goes to the home of
Padre Jose to see if he will come and hear the declaration of guilt of the
captured priest. Padre Jose refuses and the lieutenant returns to the police
station with a bottle of brandy for the priest. That night, the priest tries to
repent for his sins, but finds he cannot. He wakes up the next morning afraid of
the imminent execution.
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The next day, Mr. Tench watches the execution from the window of the jefe's
office. Later that night the boy hears about what happened to the priest and
understands that the man is a martyr and a hero. He dreams about him that night,
and wakes up to the sound of knocking at the door. Opening the door, he finds a
man seeking shelter, and when the boy learns that the man is a priest, he swings
the door wide opens to let him in. The character of the book is the unidentified
priest, known as the Whisky Priest. For eight years, he has been challenging the
government and carrying on with his priestly duties. He lives as a fugitive,
trying to escape to safety. Each time he is about to escape, someone needs him
and because of his basic decency and sense of duty, he cannot refuse. He risks
his life to help Luis’ mother, the Indian child, Maria and Brigitta, and the
Gringo. On the other hand, two people lose their lives because they do not
inform the police about him.
Previous to the book begins, the Priest, in a weak instant of despair, has sex
with Maria and becomes the illicit father of Brigitta. Until the very end of the
novel, he has a great sense of guilt about this corporeal sin. More than
anything else, he wants to plead guilty and gain a pardon. Before his execution,
Padre José, the weak priest, refuses to hear his declaration of guilt. In the
eyes of the official Church, he, consequently, dies an unforgiven sin.
As the book proceeds, the Priest is trailed on a trip filled with various events
and self-analysis. Much is revealed about the Priest. He feels it is his duty to
save himself because "God intended for man the enormous freedom of life this
life." He broods over the soundness of existence and comes to the conclusion
that he will stay alive as long as God wants to use him for some service to his
fellow man. After Montez is shot dead and Miguel is taken hostage, the Priest
begins to doubt his purpose, for lives are lost at his expense. Fears of
vengeance prevent the common people from welcoming him. At the same time he
feels he must go on because he is tranquil putting God into the mouths of the
people. (David, p. 78)
Over the years, the Priest has learned many things. When he was young, he became
a priest for the good life he could have. He enjoyed the respect of the
worshippers and the grandeur of all celebrations. Being determined, he hoped to
become a bishop.
Charging the poor for his services did not bother him, for he had a lifestyle to
maintain. He also had no doubts about his debts. He spoke expressively about the
political changes taking place in Mexico but was not really worried. He was put
to the test when the government sacked his church and banned all religious
ceremonies.
After losing his church, the Priest had to move violently to perform his duties,
as well as endure. With lots of time to consider life, he begins to really
appreciate the mystery of religion. Instead of focusing on him and the thought
he receives, the Priest starts to be grateful for human nature. When people
needed him to celebrate mass, to describe people, and to say the last rites for
the dying; he strongly believed it was his duty to help them, no matter the risk
to himself. (Greene, 1991)
Greene is interested in showing the gap between lives as it is remembered,
recorded or retold, and life as it is lived. Acts of storytelling occur quite
frequently all through the novel. The clearest example is the story of Juan, the
young martyr. One thing that becomes obvious by the novel's close is how very
different Juan's story of martyrdom is from the priest's. Juan's life is
characterized from start to finish by equanimity, loyalty and, above all,
unshakeable faith. Although the priest certainly is an admirable figure,
particularly by the time of the novel's close, he still faces death afraid and
unable to repent. But Greene is not contrasting the two accounts of martyrdom
merely to highlight the priest's shortcomings, but rather to show that real-life
differs from naive stories, in most cases. This subject extends beyond
storytelling to other forms of symbol. For example, the priest takes note of how
little the gringo looks like his picture on the wanted poster in the police
office, and the lieutenant fails to be familiar with the priest because the
priest does not have the delicate hands that a stereotypical priest would have.
Stories, pictures and other kinds of representation can give a misleading,
overstated picture of a person, and Greene is interested in writing about
reality as it is truthfully experienced, even if he himself is attempting to
create that sense of factual reality through his own storytelling. (Gaston, p.
170)
Works Cited
Greene, Graham, “General Editor: Norman Page. The Macmillisn Press Ltd. London,
1988
David, Pryce-Jones, “Graham Greene.” Oliver and Boyd LTD New York, 1967, page
78.
Greene, Graham, “John Updike: Power and the Glory”, Viking Penguin, 1991.
Wyndham, Francis and Greene, Graham, New York, 1994, page 34.
Greene, Graham, “21 Stories (includes ‘Power of the Glory’, ‘The Destructors’,
‘The Blue Film’ and ‘Special Duties’)”, page 245.
Gaston, George M. A., “The Pursuit of Salvation: A Critical Guide to the Novels
of Graham Greene”, page 170.
Davis, Robert Murray, “Perfection of the Life or of the Work: Lives of Graham
Greene”, World Literature Today
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