UNIVERSITY OF TARTU

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

THE MAIN CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL THE POWER AND THE GLORY AS

REPRESENTATIVES OF GREENE’S CONVICTIONS

BA thesis

ERIK JESSE

SUPERVISOR: LECT. KATRI SIRKEL

TARTU

2010

Abstract

This paper covers the novel The Power and the Glory of Graham Greene, one of the foremost British Catholic writers. The author of this paper tried to find out, whether and how the main characters of the novel represent Greene’s own convictions. The paper relies on interpreting the text of Graham Greene’s novel, a number of scholarly articles on Greene’s life and his worldview, as well as on a few works on Mexican history.

The novel had both historical and personal background: Greene had travelled to Mexico on an assignment to document the religious persecution there. He studied the anti-clerical purges in the Mexican provinces of Chiapas and Tabasco. The most important character in the novel is the unnamed priest, reflecting Greene’s Catholic allegiance. He is presented as the last surviving priest in the region, modeled on the region of Tabasco. The novel covers his journey in the region, which can be seen as his Golgotha road.

His main opponent is the lieutenant, who is serving the revolutionary government. He is a fierce atheist, though not without more humane traits, he is a fanatic for whom all means are good that serve the good aim. Greene, himself leaning to the left, sympathizes with the lieutenant’s wish to eradicate poverty, but also shows that his extremism is a way to terror of totalitarian regimes. The lieutenant and other secular characters (Mr. Tench) experience some kind of vacancy, which Greene seems to link to their materialistic worldview. Greene hints that materialism is inherently a limited worldview. Himself a complicated character, Greene actually sympathizes with both of the opposing sides – the priest, representing Christianity, and the lieutenant, a person who aims at improving the living conditions of the people, and we have to say neither of them is the victor in the conflict, neither conviction vanquishes the other. Rather, these two opposing sides complement each other, as Greene’s own religious and social ideas did.

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Table of contents

Abstract.................................................................................................................................2

Introduction..........................................................................................................................4

The lieutenant, the austere revolutionary..........................................................................7

The nameless priest............................................................................................................11

Padre José, the unhappy conformist.................................................................................21

Conclusion...........................................................................................................................25

References...........................................................................................................................29

Resümee...............................................................................................................................31

Introduction

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Graham Greene’s novel The Power and the Glory, one of his finest, is considered to be one

of his ‘Catholic novels’ (besides The Heart of the Matter, The Brighton Rock, The End of

the Affair). In this paper, I will examine how the main characters of the novel embody

Greene’s own convictions. In order to study this, I have used a number of biographical

works on Greene (e.g. Spurling 1983), as well as scholarly articles that cover Greene’s

Catholicism (Hortmann 1964) and his left-wing ideas. I have also used a number of works

on Mexican history (Knight 1994), as well as on Christianity (McManners 1990). In order

to form my opinions, I studied closely the text of the novel (Greene 1990) and used a book-

let of notes (King 1992). I have divided the main text into three sections: a chapter on the

lieutenant, another on the priest and the third one on padre José. I will explain the

background of the novel in the introduction and summarize the connections between the

characters in the conclusion.

The novel itself was a consequence of Greene’s travel to Mexico in 1938. He was

commissioned by Vatican to document religious persecution in Mexico (Spurling 1983:

34). In addition to The Power and the Glory (published in 1940), a novel, he published the

travel book entitled The Lawless Roads (1939). The two have a number of similarities, it

can be argued that The Lawless Roads is a preparation for the novel.

Greene’s personal observations of the situation in Mexico during the late 1930s

give a sense of authenticity to the novel. Greene had become a Catholic in 1926 and re-

tained his faith throughout his life (Updike 1990: xiv). He was thus motivated to see and

understand the troubles Mexico's largely rural and devoted Catholic population experi-

enced. On the other hand, his novel is not an ideological or propaganda piece advocating

Christian world-view. In fact, in 1950 it was condemned by the Holy Office (a congrega-

tion of the Roman Curia) for not being orthodox enough in representing the Catholic be-

liefs (Spurling 1983:34) (King 1992: 7).

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As Czesław Miłosz (1999) has said, in order to have a real tragedy, you need to

have two sympathetic sides. By this definition, ‘’The Power and the Glory’’ can be classi-

fied as a genuine tragedy, because both the ‘clerical’ (the fugitive priest) and the ‘secular’

side have a point. Greene’s personal allegiances were also divided: besides being a Chris-

tian, he was politically leftist. The novel at hand seems to reflect his own complicated situ-

ation.

At the time of Greene’s visit to Mexico, the country and especially its Southern

provinces were indeed a territory of harsh religious persecution. Anticlerical legislation

had been introduced in 1920s by the President Plutarco Elías Calles of the National Revo-

lutionary Party, which pursued populist, left-leaning policies. His policies led to a brutal

civil war (Cristero War) with Catholic peasants. In the Mexico of the 1930s, priests were

sometimes schooled in clandestine seminaries, to avoid interactions with the secularized

education (Camp 1997: 146). Calles was succeeded by Lázaro Cárdenas, initially consid-

ered a Calles loyalist, who soon moderated his predecessor’s authoritarian policies; in 1939

an avowedly clerical political party – Party of National Action – could be formed.

Cárdenas gradually removed more important pro-Calles figures from top positions,

e.g. Tomás Garrido Canabal, the governor of Tabasco from 1920-1935 (Ridgeway 2001:

143). Canabal, an ‘’atheist and a puritan’’ had enforced hard-line anticlerical policies,

which is considered to have terrorized the Catholics (Ruiz 1993: 392). For his purges, he

employed paramilitary groups called the Red Shirts (also called this manner in the novel).

Canabal’s state atheist policies inspired Greene’s figure of the (unnamed) Lieutenant in

The Power and the Glory. During his tenure, all churches in Tabasco were either closed or

just demolished.

As an example of the more grotesque aspect of Canabal’s passions, we could refer to the names he gave to his children: his son was called Lenin and daughter Zoila Libertad. In his farm, called La Florida, he had named a bull as God, a cow as Virgin of Guadalupe, an ox as Pope, a donkey as Christ etc. The capital of the state, previously called San Juan Bautista ('St. John the Baptist') was renamed into Villa Hermosa ('Beau-tiful Town'), so as to remove the religious connexion (Knight 1994: 408).

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Though Canabal was replaced in 1934, Canabal-style policies continued in Tabasco

and Chiapas in 1938 (at the time of Greene’s visit), where peasants were at times praying

in churches, but there were no clergy to guide the congregations (King 1992: 9).

On the other hand, Tabasco was one of the first provinces in Mexico to introduce

female suffrage and similar social reforms. It can be argued that the rule of the National

Revolutionary Party which introduced a number of reforms in 1920s and 1930s, helped

move the country forward from the state of poor agrarian semi-colony of the United States.

Peonage was abolished, labour and trade union legislation was passed, in the late 1930s,

some lands of the landlords were re-distributed to the peasants. (Wolf 1999: 44–45)

Greene himself was by no means opposed to a ‘social revolution’. While not a com-

munist like Sartre and many other leading intellectuals were, Greene embraced left-wing

policies. In an essay on Eric Gill, written in 1941, Greene argued that ‘’conservatism and

Catholicism should be […] impossible bedfellows (Updike 1990: xii). In the second vol-

ume of memoirs (‘’Ways of Escape’’), Greene recalled his later visit to Mexico and argued

that the present Mexican government (of Institutional Revolutionary Party, the successor to

the president Cardenas’s party) was not left-wing enough. During the Cold War era,

Greene even pleaded for people like Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and Kim Philby, a Soviet

spy (Updike 1990: xvii).

George Orwell recalled in 1949, that in the 1930s it seemed as if Greene were turn-

ing into the first pro-Soviet Catholic intellectual of Britain (there had been such cases in

France), but by 1949 it was clear that on some issues Greene is somewhat conservative and

as a Catholic sides with the church, and in essence ‘’is just a mild Left with faint CP lean-

ings’’ (Pryce-Jones 1963: 11). The novel Greene wrote based on his Mexican experiences

makes it pretty clear that Greene opposed political persecutions and secular totalitarianism,

whatever the great goals such politicians had.

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The lieutenant, the austere revolutionary

The lieutenant is the second central character of the novel, and also the other

personification of Greene's ideas. If the nameless priest represents the mentality of religion,

martyrdom and more vague humanism, the lieutenant is an austere figure with clear ideas.

Besides psychological, spiritual matters, Greene is also a great describer of ''the horror of

the natural word'' (Burgess 1967: 93).

The lieutenant is a revolutionary, someone who wishes to begin again with the

mankind. He is a left-winger. More often than not, the right is associated with the

establishment, the left on the contrary with opposition to the established order and upper

strata of the society. The right is keen of preserving what good there already is (Oakeshott

1956). The leftists try to stand up for the lower classes, the underdogs of the society.

Instead of individual’s rights for property, the needs of the society as a whole are what

matter most for them. Instead of individualism, persons’ aspirations, greediness, there must

come collectivism, the importance of the collective. Therefore, radical changes are sought

and put into effect.

This character here is similar to the portrayals of socialist revolutionaries in

literature (from Chernyshevsky's novel What is to be Done? to the old communist Szczuka

in Jerzy Andrzejewski's Ashes and Diamond). A man of humble origin, he has risen to

power. Although he is nominally subordinate to the chief of police (jefe) in the novel, it is

precisely the lieutenant himself who is really in charge of the operation – manhunt of the

last remaining priest. Having gained power, he does not use it for personal gains, unlike

jefe.

In contrast to the priest, this character has no sensual or even sentimental feeling,

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e.g. he just ‘’felt no need for women’’. His apartment, described early in the novel,

‘’looked as comfortless as prison or monastic cell’’ (Greene 1990: 26). Although the

Mexican revolution was not socialist in essence, this character is more of a socialist than a

bourgeois reformer. Wishing to ‘’eliminate everything that was poor, superstitious, and

corrupt’’ (Greene 1990: 71), he wants to begin from tabula rasa. This character is

consequently determined to end for once and for all the power of the Catholic Church that

still shaped the worldview of the illiterate and semi-illiterate masses.

When reaching the village in which the priest is hiding himself, the lieutenant

explains to the illiterate peasants in very simple terms who is the man he is seeking. There

is the ’Gringo’ (James Calver), whose capturer is offered 500 pesos (revolutionary

vigilance itself is not enough, apparently). Besides, there is the priest: ’’You know what

this means. A traitor to the republic. Anyone who shelters him, is a traitor, too.’’ (Greene

1990: 95). Being agitated, he asks the peasants who had just offered safe haven to the

priest: ‘’What good has God ever done to you?’’ He says that all the church can promise

the people is false hope for a heaven after the death, where everything will be fine. He feels

obliged to add that everything will be fine indeed one day, namely when all priests are

dead. ‘’You are all alike, you people, you never learn the truth – that God knows nothing’’

(Greene 1990: 182), he later sighs.

It should be emphasized, that in the view of some critics of socialism, anti-clerical

and/or anti-religious sentiment is an essential part of socialist ideologies. The Soviet

dissident Igor Shafarevich argues that the principle of abolishing the religion ‘’has been

repeatedly proclaimed in socialist doctrines, beginning with the end of the seventeenth

century’’ (Shafarevich 1980: 195—196). Interestingly, the pictures Shafarevich draws

from Russian history are strikingly similar to the Canabal style militant atheism in the

province of Tabasco:

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''This was the time when the most decisive attempt was undertaken to destroy the Russian Orthodox Church (in connection with the so-called campaign for the removal of church valuables). It was a time when tribunals were convened to try God and He was sentenced to death by unanimous vote. At Easter, there were demonstrations with blasphemous pictures and slogans. ... ''(Shafarevich 1980: 251)

The Soviet dissident regards socialism as a teaching that is directed against the

individuality of men and the individual responsibility before reason, conscience or higher

powers, in contrast with the teachings of Christianity or Buddhism. Though the goal of

socialism is to do away with the desperate material poverty of lower classes. But what is

offered is spiritually void existence, where death is seen as a sort of end-goal (Shafarevich

1980: 280). There is striking resemblance with the philosophical critique of socialism and

passages in the text, such as this reflection on the lieutenant: ’’[h]e was a mystic, too, and

what he experienced was vacancy – a complete certainty in the existence of a dying,

cooling world of human beings who had evolved from animals for no purpose at all.’’

(Greene 1980: 27)

If we consider the ideas expressed by the Mexican state authorities, especially the

lieutenant, we see important similarities with socialism. Or as Burgess (1967: 95) puts it,

we ‘’observe a local revolution in a small and remote state’’ where the leaders ‘’know

best’’; it is again material prosperity that is set as the goal. It is no accident, that the

lieutenant is connected with the Syndicate of Workers and Peasants, a hint to socialist

affiliations (in fact, the Governor Canabal led a Radical Socialist Party)

The stern lieutenant here in the novel struggles for an ideal, and for achieving this,

all means are good. Once he has decided to take hostages from villages that might harbour

the priest, it is logical for him to shoot those (randomly selected people), if he finds out the

priest has been in their village indeed:

’’You heard what happened at Concepcion. I took a hostage there... and when I

found that that priest had been in the neighbourhood, I put the man against the nearest

tree.’’ (Greene 1990: 98)

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We do not see the lieutenant’s side organizing mass killings of ’’enemies of the

people’’ (Mexican revolution did not reach that point), but the lieutenant as depicted in the

novel, is the kind of person who would make for a good NKVD officer.

Graham Greene himself was not such a person, he was much more like the priest: a

person of great ideas and high standards but with human vices. And yet, the character of

the lieutenant is not the wicked counterpart to a good clergyman. Greene strongly objected

such a coverage of his characters in a Hollywood film (King 1992: 9). The lieutenant and

the priest both contrast with (educated) persons who drift in life, not committed to any

truths (padre José, mr Fellows), not trying to advance any cause. It is likely, that those two

were meant to complement each other. The tragedy of this novel arises from the fact that

good people happened to face each other, and, moreover, good intentions tend to collide

with each other. Greene believed in the possibility and need of reforming the world; he did

not regard his contemporary conditions as sanctioned by the God and thus, eternal. An

anti-imperialist, he opposed the US intervention in Vietnam and on that topic wrote the

novel The Quiet American, highly critical of the US involvement that took place under the

guise of repelling the communist aggression. As noted by Burgess, the martyr Magiot in

The Comedians (set in Haiti run by pro-American tyranny) sums up some of Greene's

ideas:

''But Communism, my Friends, is more than Marxism, just as Catholicism [...] is more than the Roman curia. There is a mystique as well as a politique. We are humanists, you and I. Communists have committed great crimes, but at least they have not stood aside, like an established society, and been indifferent.'' (Burgess 1968: 97)

Though he finally eliminates the last remaining priest, the lieutenant is not really

victorious. He watches with despair, how the peasant masses (likely as poor as before the

revolution many years ago) are clinging to the hated religion and superstitions. And if he,

like Greene depicted him, looked back at the days of tracing the last priest of the state as

especially happy days, what could be the use of his ideology, what valuable replacement to

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the old, corrupt ideology of Catholicism can it offer?

In my opinion, it would be simplification to assume Greene is mainly juxtaposing

religious/spiritual way of thinking with secular/materialistic ideology of the lieutenant. The

fact remains, though, that both the lieutenant, the champion of militant atheism, and

wealthy secularized persons in the novel, mr. Tench and Captain Fellows feature vacancy,

boredom or even feelings of futility. Here Greene shows his creed as a Catholic writer: the

faith is of value for society and for individuals, and secular outlook inevitably has

shortcomings.

The nameless priest

The figure of the fugitive priest, that of the protagonist of the novel, represents Greene’s

main interest – Christianity. The novel can be interpreted as a spiritual Golgotha road, with

a number of encounters with Judas. In addition, there are other aspects of Greene’s

Christianity revealed here. He can be compared with other Christ figures in literature, e.g.

Dostoyevsky’s Myshkin. What is Christ-like here in the case of the nameless priest, is his

perseverance in nonviolent struggle. As a person, he is not a saint, yet he is a more abstract

character than protagonists of Greene’s other ’Catholic novels’. In The Heart of the Matter,

Scoby is a desperate Catholic, who ultimately commits the heinous crime of suicide

(Evelyn Waugh, a fellow convert to Catholicism, found the whole novel ’’a mad

blasphemy’’ (Hortmann 1964: 64)). And in The Power and the Glory, the priest feels he

has given way to despair – also an unforgivable sin.

Greene himself was from a middle class family, his father was a headmaster. For

Grahame, the years he spent in the school were nightmarish (King 1992: 31). He recalled

having felt the need for some ray of hope. Greene considered Anglicanism a conformist

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choice. Thus, he continued as an atheist, until disputes with father Trollope brought him

around. He had needed something offering a more mystical world view. Anglicanism was

too rational, pragmatic, to offer anything for a person yearning for a spiritual guide in the

seemingly senseless world. True, he himself noted he was not converted into a religious

faith: he just became ’’convinced in the probability of its creed’’ (Pryce-Jones 1963:42).

Greene, who had psychological problems (he was manic-depressive), was often

overwhelmed with some existential boredom of life, something that mr Tench seems to

experience in the novel. Greene must have found some support in that ’probability’ of

God’s existence.

The novel The Power and the Glory is probably the most important treatise of

religion that Greene has ever written. In The Heart of the Matter, the despaired policeman,

a Christian character, experiences a series of moral dilemmas, but here we have a whole

Catholic population of a region experiencing troubles because of their faith. The passive

resistance of the uneducated peasant masses is reverberated in the priest’s Golgotha road

(in this respect the American title – The Labyrinthine Ways – carries the meaning of the

novel: a person’s route in a maze). The priest has carried on for eight years, and now the

time is running up. The Greenian manner of setting the protagonist in the midst of critical

circumstances is very typical; it is the manner of Catholic fiction in general.

Thus, at the beginning of the novel, the Governor demands that the last priest has

to be caught soon. In an interesting conversation, he is deemed more dangerous than a

murderer, the ’Gringo’. We can even see this as a parallel to the Scriptures, where the

Jewish clergyman refused Pontius Pilate’s offer to execute a thief instead of Jesus.

There is a certain sense of foreboding hanging on characters. At the beginning of

the novel the priest misses a ship that would have moved him into safety. He himself

admits the defeat, saying he was meant to miss the ship. This is the same ’’appalling [...]

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strangeness of the mercy of God’’, as a priest remarks in The Brighton Rock.

In line with Greene’s belief that there are no black and white colours in mankind –

only black and grey, the priest’s travel through the unnamed state (easily recognized as

Tabasco) reveals a morbid picture on human depravity and the ever-present sinfulness.

Greene’s universe is usually a world of sin (Pryce-Jones 1963: 29f). Perhaps Greene’s

experience during adolescence in the public school, an experience of hell, revoked the

writer’s intense interest in darker sides of human existence (Spurling 1983: 36). Sin is

there in interpersonal relations (The Brighton Rock), in the Mexican conditions and (to

bring an example from Greene’s later works) in Haiti suffering under political tyranny

(The Comedians).

As previously mentioned, the priest is no exception to this. His nickname is the

’whisky priest’: he seems to be an alcoholic, in as much the miserable circumstances allow

him to drink (after all, there is also prohibition in the state – alcoholism is just another vice

to be overcome in the new society).

In the first chapter, when trying to get on boat of the ship to Vera Cruz, the priest

meets the dentist Tench, an American expatriate who is also a forlorn character: a person

who has lost the contact with his family years ago (likely due to revolutionary events) and

has lived alone for fifteen years. At mr Tench’s, the two share some brandy, that the priest

has carried with him. The dentist immediately grasps that the stranger is an educated man.

The doctor’s impartial eye notes, though, that his guest’s teeth were in a poor shape;

furthermore his whole appearance is of ’’neglect of somebody of now account who had

been beaten up incidentally, by ill health or restlessness (Greene 1990: 12)’’.

Mr Tench hints he has always felt estranged here in Mexico, and regards the place

as miserable. The guest vaguely disagrees, saying there used to be God for the people at

least, though admitting the world is an awful place because of ’’the way things happen’’.

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Already then the author creates a possibility for the destiny to catch the priest. A child

enters the dentist’s room, saying his mother is very ill. The dentist says there’s no use in a

doctor seeing the woman, if she is dying: but this is an obligation for a priest. Indeed, ’’the

stranger got up: unwillingly he had been summoned to an occasion he couldn’t pass by.’’

There is already sense of resignation when he comments: ’’It always seems to happen.

Like this’’ (Greene 1990: 16). The priest goes with the child, leaving the dentist Tench

who apparently had enjoyed meeting a foreigner there alone with his feelings of

loneliness, and ’vacancy’. This character, only sketched passing by, reflects the kind of

boredom, feeling of futility that a Western middle class person – like Greene – could

experience.

The priest, who indicates an opposite form of relatively well-to-do Tench’s despair,

namely that of material misery, is shown as a person who has gone through a trial. He

easily offered to share his brandy (a valuable possession in those circumstances) with quite

a random person, a trivial fact that testifies he had reckoned with sailing away from the

troubled region. Once he has reached the decision to leave, it must be frustrating to turn

around. He fulfills his task, but he prays that he be caught soon. This character shows

attitudes of submissiveness and even self-desertion; for better or worse, these are Christian.

Thereafter, priest moves to the countryside, where his former parish was located

(Concepcion). He holds a Mass for the people, while himself only wishing to have sleep. In

the next village, he is going to face several dilemmas. His days as a young priest now seem

like good old days; he had been an ambitious person. He has had a generally happy

childhood, but as a child he had been afraid of many thing, among them poverty. A clerical

vocation had once looked like a choice leading to wealth and fame. But his ambitious

nature as a young person was to have its consequences later.

When returning now, he is confident of a warm welcome (even expecting the

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people to kiss his hands and ask for blessing), but this is not the case since the Red Shirts

had been there already, and that hostages had been taken in Concepcion (we later learn that

it was wine that gave away that the priest had been there in fact: he used it for Mass, as it

was difficult to get hold of). A hostage has been shot. This is a serious blow to the priest:

because of him, other people have been and will be shot. The wish that he himself be

captured resurfaces, and there is still the option of trying to escape from the country. But

on the other hand, he is the only priest the children of the village (and perhaps of the whole

region) can remember, he is the person who keeps alive the church (whereas people

themselves have not lost the faith). If he is gone, ’’God in all this space between the sea

and the mountains’’ (Greene 1990: 83) will cease to exist. The author lets the protagonist

recognize the ’’immense load of responsibility’’, whilst there is not a single person to be

consulted. This is like the case of Scobie in Heart of the Matter, who had to choose

between his wife and a person he really loved, and eventually gave up and committed

suicide.

Here, in case of the priest, there is a personal thing, too. Years ago, the priest has

broken his vow – he has a child with a villager called Maria. Perhaps this is one of the

reasons Greene’s coverage of the Mexican conditions was not approved of by the Vatican

establishment: true Catholics do not forgive such a misdeed for simple fellow Catholics, let

alone saints.

The priest is reluctantly offered shelter for the night. In the morning, he holds Mass

for the villagers. He knows it is the last time he addresses himself to those peasants. Yet,

he has trouble finding suitable words. Nevertheless, he manages to finds comparisons for

heaven: this is a place without the Red Shirts, jefe, taxes and soldiers. Then the message

comes, that the police are approaching. This is the first of the priest’s three occasions of

meeting his archenemy, lieutenant.

15

The lieutenant does not recognize the priest among the villagers; the priest’s sin

actually saves him: his child recognizes that man is his father. The police do not expect

priests to have children (Greene 1990: 98).

Suicide would be a mortal sin, resulting in sure damnation. Perhaps just admitting

he is the man police are looking for would have also qualified as suicide. On the other

hand, the more and more villagers are going to be shot, if he continues to seek refuge

anywhere in the state. When the lieutenant asks the villagers to give out, who is the priest,

the whisky priest is surprised: faith is stronger than fear; no-one betrays him. The priest is

portrayed as having no fear of death (he hardly has a reason, too), so unsurprisingly he, a

man now too ’’old to be of much use in the fields’’, offers himself as a hostage. The

lieutenant rejects this offer with his typical abrasive tone: ’’I’m choosing a hostage, not

offering free board and lodging to the lazy.’’ Instead, he goes away with a man called

Miguel, whom he has chosen as the hostage. The priest loses still other belongings of his:

Maria has broken the priest’s bottle of wine, so that no trouble can be brought anymore.

She cries to the priest: ’’Go away altogether. You’re no good anymore to anyone [...] We

don’t want you anymore’’ (Greene 1990: 101).

Priest leaves, but heading towards south, instead of north (‘’where the worst that

could happen to him was a fine and a few days in prison’’), and therefore needed wine:

without this, he was useless (Greene 1980: 106). On a road towards the capital of the state,

he meets a poor half-caste peasant. Having crossed the river, the priest notices that the man

had swum the river. The priest recognizes soon: this man is his Judas. The religious

connotations here are evident (though, of course, this uninvited acquaintance, forcing

company to the solitary priest is not his treacherous pupil). The Judas figure of this novel is

both inwardly and outwardly repellant: it is one of the poor peasants, who have lost most

of the humanity due to harsh conditions. He who considers himself a Christian (as other

16

peasants) has heard of the prize for the priest. Having recognized the person in shabby

clothing as the fugitive, he even addresses him with ‘’father’’and ‘’Señor’’. The priest

manages to get rid of the half-caste, because the latter is having fever; instead of Carmen

(the place of his birth), the priest heads towards the capital. He knows the half-caste will

report him, at the same time testifying the priest did not visit Carmen: this might save the

hostages.

Here, dressed in a drill suit, he meets a beggar, who offers to introduce the priest to

someone who could sell him ‘’a drink’’ (it is wine that the priest really needs). We

conclude that he is still determined to continue with his duties as a clergyman. Confiscated

strong alcohol can be re-sold in the black market by the governor’s cousin. Here we have

one of the most lyrical scenes of the novel. After bargaining, the priest gets both brandy

(that is initially offered), and wine (for which he has to pay his remaining centavos). The

business has to be toasted and, alas, the governor’s cousin recalls he has not had wine for a

long time. The three – priest, beggar, the governor’s cousin – are joined by the chief of

police himself. It is not really surprising, when jefe remarks, that his men are hunting a

priest and have shot three or four hostages already, but if it were just him, he ‘’would let

the poor devil alone […]. He can’t be doing any good – or any harm’’ (Greene 1980: 147).

We notice again, that simple state bureaucrats (who themselves are also ready to break the

austere laws) may well not be the driving forces of the evil: it is the Governor that is so

keen on getting the person ‘’whom nobody even noticed he was about till a few months

ago’’ (Greene 1980: 147). It is the puritanical lieutenant, who is shooting the hostages.

Eventually, jefe takes the last drops of brandy, and notes with astonishment, when the

figure in drill has tears in his eyes. The priest is left with some brandy (‘’after all, you paid

for it’’) and no money. Of course, there is no wine left.

Brandy, however, will soon have a role to play: on the city streets, he is chased and

17

caught by the Red Shirts, after being betrayed by padre José (as will be discussed later).

Arrested, he priest thinks this was the beginning of the end; he begins saying contrition. He

thinks of his daughter, ‘’but he could only think of her with a kind of famished love.’’ His

capturers did not recognize him as the fugitive priest, but the bottle of spirit that is

virulently smashed – a drink that the Red Shirts’ superior himself had shared not long ago.

A person with shabby cloths, not in the condition of paying the fine (for possessing

spirits), he has to spend the night in a prison cell where human vice and piousness are

represented. Thinking that the ten years’ hunt is over anyway, he admits he is a priest,

furthermore, he claims he is ‘’a bad priest and a bad man,’’ who is going to die in the state

of mortal sin (Greene 1990: 164). In the prison cell, there is a dogmatic, self-righteous

Christian woman arguing that both the whisky priest and padre José mock ‘’the real

religion’’. Greene, however, shows that it is people like her who really mock the essence of

Christianity. Greene’s Catholicism is of Jansenist origin, less orthodox and less dogmatic

(Burgess 1967:93). The pious woman boasts that she is in prison, because of having

possessed Christian books in her house; she dismisses other imprisoned people as if they

were subhumans. Outward religion contrasts here with unchristian essence: for the better

or worse, true Christianity does not dismiss ‘’thieves, murderers’’ like that. Greene writes

that it is difficult for well-fed priests to preach austerity (Greene 1990: 91), it is not

convincing when the pious woman who is going to be released the next day (her sister will

pay the fine) teaches, who are good Christians and who are not: the biggest fault she finds

in whisky priest is that he sympathizes with other people in the cell, ‘’with these animals’’

(Greene 1990: 171). Greene shows that none of those people are thoroughly corrupt,

though. The priest has told them that there is a reward for his denouncer. Yet, he is not

betrayed by anyone in the cell. Sin is pervasive in Greene’s universe, yet there are few

apart from Satan himself whom Greene would send into Hell (Hortmann 1964: 69).

18

In the morning, the priest and the lieutenant for the second time met face to face:

still not recognized, he has to ask for permission to leave. The lieutenant seems to recall

something vaguely. In the end, the lieutenant lets his archenemy flee again; what is more,

we see the lieutenant’s more human part: considering that the captive had no money for the

fee, he offers him some, so that the man could survive:

‘’You are getting too old for work.’’ He put his hand suddenly in his pocket and pulled out a five-peso piece. ‘’There,’’ he said. ‘’Get out of here and don’t let me see your face again. Mind that.’’ The priest held the coin in his fist – the price of a Mass. He said with astonishment: ‘’You’re a good man.’’ (Greene 1990: 183)

The lieutenant can be humane; his convictions make him act inhumanly.

Leaving the capital, the priest heads towards South. Suffering as something

redemptive is a common theme in Catholic fiction (Cadegan 1996: 42). Here, the priest

faces challenges by the nature. In a remote area, he finds a deserted Indian village with just

one woman, who does not speak Spanish. The woman is carrying her dead child,

apparently killed by the American bandit; it seemed to the priest that she wanted to have

her buried near a church (state border was not far away). It is interesting to note how

Christian beliefs of the American Indians combine here with pre-Columbine rituals.

Moving on a difficult terrain on a plateau, the weather and fatigue make the priest

increasingly feverous. When after a long journey he meets an armed man, he immediately

‘’gave his name to a stranger first time in ten years’’ (he saw no point in continuing). But

here comes another Greenian turn of events: at the edge of the forest, he notes white

buildings that seem like barracks. The building is not barracks: it is a church. The priest

has reached into safety of the neighbouring region. Although it is illegal to say Mass, the

punishment is mere fine. Planning to move towards Las Casas (the town in the province of

Chiapas is named in the novel), he can says mass in a barn. The life is becoming more

normal for the priest (his habit of having a drink returns), but we know that this is not

going to last, a martyrdom has to be completed.

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The morning he is planning to leave for Las Casas, the half-caste appears once

again. The American bandit is said to be dying, and wishes to confess, so goes the story

that has ‘’as many wholes in it as a sieve’’ (Greene 1990: 236). Nevertheless, the priest

who had intended to confess his own sins to a clergyman in Las Casas, unwillingly gives

in. As in case of missing the ship to Veracruz because of a dying child, he now fulfills his

duty: ‘’even a coward has a sense of duty’’, he will explain to the lieutenant in his typical

humble tone (Greene 1990: 251). Greene has given the half-caste traits that underscore his

essence of a Judas: during their travel, the half-caste often uses Christian terminology,

complains that the priest does not believe in his words and tries to convince the priest, that

he is not betraying him. When the priest has been imprisoned, his Judas asks for his

blessing. This contrasts with Calver’s final acts: he advises the priest, ready to hear

Calver’s confession, to use his gun and get out of the hut, before being captured (Greene

1990: 247).

The priest’s procession to the capital starts on Sunday, just like Christ entered into

Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (King 1982: 31). Before being convoyed to the capital, the

lieutenant and the captured priest have a dialogue that offers insight into the two

worldviews. The lieutenant explains that he has nothing against the priest as a man: he has

to kill him because he is a danger, as his teaching (Christianity) is a threat. The lieutenant

is convinced that his ideas – to give people bread instead of prayers and to build school

instead of churches – will be real progress and besides material improvements nothing can

be achieved. The priest on the other hand advances the Christian conviction: the world is

an unhappy place, whether you are a rich or poor person (there is the original sin!) (Greene

1990: 256). Also, the priest’s worldview does not exclude social reforms, but it opposes

secular totalitarianism. Greene argues once again, that material progress is a necessary

thing, yet the plight of the mankind will never fully change. There can be no paradise on

20

the earth that the socialist doctrine promises.

In the morning he is going to be executed, the priest thinks how useless he has

been, but he is not right. Even the lieutenant has admitted, that the priest had served God

well (Greene 1990: 263). The road to God is always difficult in Greene’s novels. It

warrants a comparison with Kafka’s parable of a man trying to get access to the Law,

something that after all should be enabled to anyone. In a similar manner, Greene’s

characters struggle to reach God’s grace, that – from a common person’s point of view – a

believer should achieve after all. Concerning the priest in this novel, Greene himself sums

it up: ‘’[h]e had given way to despair – and out of that emerged a human soul and love –

not the best love, but love all the same’’ (Greene 1980: 129).

Whilst Catholic teachings determine, that anyone who dies in the state of mortal sin

(and the priest is in such a situation), is damned, at the end of the novel Greene hints that

the whisky priest is absolved. On the last pages of the book, a man with a suitcase comes

and introduces himself to Luis as a priest. We can interpret this literally like King (1982:

35) does as the arrival of a new priest; but we can also understand that episode as the

whisky priest’s resurrection. Keeping the faith alive for many years in a corner of Mexico

is not a small achievement. The nameless priest of the novel is not a saint; yet he is a

martyr for the faith. His power derived from his Catholic faith. Greene’s character

depiction and portrayal of the real historical events in Mexico have definitely done more

good than harm to the Catholic cause.

Padre José, the unhappy conformist.

The third important figure that in my view reflects Greene’s own convictions in the novel

is padre José. As previously said, Greene was often sparing with character’s names

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(Spurling 1983: 13), in the novel at hand he called some important figures by their

function, as if trying to hint that the characters are of universal importance, timeless and

are more than just a person. The figure of José obviously has some connections with the

nameless priest in that they both were clerics. The crucial difference is that the whisky

priest did not succumb to the pressure exerted by state powers, whereas José did, becoming

a pensioner, a former priest.

Greene’s coverage of the character is not lengthy, yet we see a sketch of a

conformist, who has ultimately lost almost everything except for his life. Indeed, it would

be difficult to envy the choices that man made. Apparently still a Christian, a believer, he

became a ’’living sacrilege’’, having conformed to the state governor’s order that all

priests must marry (Greene 1990: 28). He is kept as a vivid proof of the weakness of ’’their

faith’’, as the lieutenant put it. Despite his austerity, the lieutenant shows pragmatic

calculation: José’s way of acting is regarded as the best of all options. The propagandistic

effect is noticeable, as it shows ’’the deception they had practiced all these years’’ (Greene

1990: 28). If they really believed in heaven and hell, they would rather sacrifice their life in

exchange for the eternal bliss, the Lieutenant thinks. José himself seems to believe he is in

a way a great martyr as he has told the children (Greene 1980: 30). Their pious mother

discards such talk, claiming José is a despicable ’’traitor to God’’ (Greene 1980: 30).

Nevertheless, the state pensioner feels miserable. With forty years of priesthood

having shaped him, he is now a ’’fat old impotent man’’ fearing his wife’s call to bed (the

wife is his former house-keeper). He looks forward with despair to the days ahead: it is a

frightening prospect, after all, that he might live till ninety (Greene 1980: 33). Having lived

for two years already ’’in the state of mortal sin’’, he thinks all his acts defy God. There is

no use of praying, he thinks. He considers he must be the biggest martyr of them all: for

those shot, everything is over. José’s torments go on and on.

22

Further developments in the novel show Jose continuing with his chosen path of

conformism. Having wished his own death, he is incapable of finding moral strength to

break with the humiliating life, when an occasion arises. Critics (e.g. George Orwell) have

argued Greene’s Catholic novels are composed in a fashion that leaves all neat and

collisions are painted with implausibly bright colours. In my opinion, though, it is as if the

author offers ordeals to José, who by trial confirms his own weakness.

First, in chapter four of the novel, mother and father of people are going to bury

their five year old child in the cemetery. As fidels, they would of course like to hear a

prayer. Padre José is walking about at that time: the cemetry gives his mind some moments

of peace, for there are no children there (who would mock him) nor is his wife.

Recognizing padre, the mourners plead him to utter a prayer. Yet, it is law that José recalls

of. Even in the best of times, he had been excessively humble vis a vis the authorities – the

ostensibly Christian authorities at that by-gone time (Greene 1990: 121). Now, despite the

assurances that the family would not tell anyone, José thinks in the end he can trust no-one.

Though he would like to fulfill his duty, fear resurfaces. Faced with the possibility of being

like a true Christian for a moment, he fails live up to that prospect.

A second, more interesting occasion arises later: José meets the run-away priest.

This time he would be in real danger, unlike in the case of two lonely mourners, where any

’risks’ were small. The whisky priest has reached the capital of the province, and tried to

buy wine so as to be able to say Mass. In possession of a remainder of brandy, the priest is

chased by the Red Shirts and the police. He bangs on the door of José’s room; the two had

last met at a conference in a cathedral, where Jose had been characteristically ’’sitting in

the back row, biting his nails, afraid to be noticed’’(Greene 1990: 152). Now, priest reveals

he is being chased and asks José to let him stay for the night at José’s. The latter’s response

does not surprise us: ’’Go away,’’ he demands, and threatens to call the police.

23

Greene describes José as feeling a sort of hatred against the poor man, who is

thinking whether he has offended or done some harm to José, that would explain the

latter’s reaction. In reality, Greene seems to juxtapose two types of clergymen; José

actually has a reason to be venomous, as his own position is even less envious than that of

the priest, fugitive, but still alive and at least more righteous before God’s face. ’’I don’t

want martyrs here’’, Jose shouts at his former colleague. ’’Go and die quickly. That’s your

job’’ he adds, slamming the door (Greene 1990: 153). The whisky priest is caught by the

Red Shirts, but is not identified as the priest. In those brief moments, José had a chance to

make a new start, whilst facing the hazard of being shot himself. His words that no martyrs

are needed there, at his place, stand in contrast with his previous thoughts that being shot

would be better option than life in humiliation.

Padre José is presented with an ultimate challenge, when the priest is finally

captured and recognized. The lietenant keeps his promise and contacts José so that he

could hear priest’s confession before the priest is executed. As expected, padre becomes

fearful, when the lieutenant introduces himself; José immediately feels obliged to assure he

did not say prayer at the graveyard. With ’’acid satisfaction’’, the lieutenant listens to

padre’s squabble with his wife, who is trying to forbid his wavering husband. ’’His wife

wouldn’t let him,’’ the Lieutenant reports with satisfaction to the captured priest, to be shot

the next day (Greene 1990: 268—271).

Thus, I believe the character of José was meant to contrast both the lieutenant and

the unnamed priest. The two opponents have – on a personal level – in common that they

are committed to a cause, the Lieutenant actively fighting for his ideas, the priest

advancing his convictions by simply surviving, not surrendering. Both socialism and

Catholicism had a place in Greene’s worldview, and the two have sometimes been in one

way or another combined in Latin American life, having a similar apocalyptic,

24

eschatologic basis (McManners 1990: 440) . Jose as depicted in the novel is not a bad man;

he is not a corrupt clergyman.

The problem of him was his spinelessness, conformism and servile attitude towards

the authorities. In comparison, Captain Fellows, an easy-going Englishman is another case

of conformism. Fellows is almost a caricature, though admittedly Greene’s satire is sharp

indeed. Unlike the lieutenant, the priest or even José, Fellows is a thoroughly unconcerned

nature, a foolish well-to-do person, ’’happy man’’ (Greene 1980: 35), with a splendid

appetite, good mood. It is striking, that Fellows even felt happy in war-time France, amidst

miseries and the horrors of war. In comparison with that blissful conformist mentality, José

is not a happy conformist. He is a person whose profession would presume moral courage,

and this is clearly lacking in case of José. A son of a peon, he was humble as a priest and is

servile in relations with the new revolutionary, atheist powers. Greene demonstrates here,

that lack of willpower and commitment to one’s beliefs can completely ruin one’s life.

Thus, he is likely the most pitiful character of the novel. If the nameless priest dies

as suitable for a Christian, the lieutenant has the pleasure to think his acts contribute to the

fight for creating a ’’new, better world’’, padre José must feel totally futile – as befits a

coward and thorough conformist.

Conclusion

What then, did Graham Greene attempt to illustrate with those characters, which are the

connections with Greene’s own ideas? As we have seen, Greene himself was politically

aligned with the left; to the extent of defending Castro. If the right-wingers are more con-

cerned of preserving what valuable there is already (Oakeshott 1956), the left is keen on

trying to improve the people’s lives, often with radical reforms.

25

Some (e.g. George Orwell initially) saw Greene as suspiciously close to Soviet

communism, but Greene never reached that far. Besides his middle class background,

Greene’s religious affiliations definitely prevented him from becoming a Communist

writer. Already in the 1930s, when Western intellectuals were mostly concerned with the

rise of Nazism and similar movements, Greene saw the threats of left-wing totalitarianism.

In The Power and the Glory, the Lieutenant is an embodiment of those threats. It is a clear-

cut character; almost a concept. This is a picture of a firm revolutionary; fighter for the bet-

ter future of mankind. He believes that activism of human beings can improve living con-

ditions of the masses. This is typical left-wing philosophy. Eradicating religion is also a

common topic in socialist theories (Shafarevich, 1980). In the novel the revolutionary

forces aim at eliminating the religion, for once and for all. It is interesting to note, that the

chief of police (jefe), quite a corrupt official, reveals he has no particular hatred of the

priest: convictions create fanatic characters like lieutenant.

Though Greene believed in the possibility of improving the mankind’s plight, in-

cluding leftist reforms, later in the 1960s opposed American support for corrupt dictator-

ships of the Latin American oligarchy, both the travelogue and The Power and the Glory

show Greene disapproving of extremist practices. He also saw his own faith threatened in

Tabasco style atheist totalitarianism. The lieutenant actually does share some of Greene’s

convictions (and the lieutenant quite rightly scorns the established church for corruption,

self-interest and lack of real concern for the people). In addition, this character shows the

poverty of megalomaniac focus on one cause -- to perish the clergy and its last representa-

tive in the state, whatever this costs!

Greene shows how the masses suffer because of this (hostages who are shot). We

see this revolutionary in destructive, not constructive action. Also, strict materialism is a

too simple doctrine. The main opponent of the priest reveals that firm materialism and con-

26

sequent belief in the ‘’dying, cooling universe’’ and the total useless of human existence

are hard to bear. The lieutenant’s doctrine has little to offer. Greene himself had found

refuge in Catholicism, not because he liked the church establishment, but because he liked

the mystical character of that religion. It offered him something spiritual, that socialist

teachings lacked.

Few hints withstanding (Syndicate of Workers and Peasants), the Lieutenant is not

presented as a socialist. Yet, Greene’s portrait serves as a warning of totalitarian commu-

nism, state-sanctioned atheism (in real life, Canabal’s atheist ‘fundamentalism’ was very

similar to the purges and mockery of religion that took place in the USSR) and perhaps

also of materialism. Some feeling of vacancy is what seems to connect people like the lieu-

tenant, Mr Tench and, to some extent, also Mr Fellows. If the lieutenant’s understanding of

voidness is ideological, in case of Tench this is because the man feels futile. The buffoon-

like Fellows, shows limits of materialism, oriented towards consumption. He is a primitive

fellow, a happy man, the problem with him is that he is unconcerned of the world around

him, because of his own limitedness. His uncaringness in wartime France shows the more

problematic side of such characters.

If the lieutenant reflected both Greene’s sympathy of the left-wing cause and his

concern with the excesses, the character of the nameless priest – who after all is the main

character of the novel – came into being because of religion. It would have been difficult

for an atheist to convincingly show the struggle and dilemmas of a priest. The novel bor-

rows heavily from Greene’s impressions during his trip to Mexico. Greene as a Catholic

writer was sent there to investigate the anticlerical purges. Unlike the lieutenant, Greene’s

priest is not very concise. He is not some embodiment of an idea. Christianity cannot be re-

duced to one simple thesis like atheism can (that is, negation of the existence of a god).

Greene was not a Catholic role model either. Both he and his Catholic character have their

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shortcomings. Nevertheless, the priest possesses deep faith, it gives him strength not to

give up. After his Golgotha road, when he has reached the safer province of Mexico, he

still returns, going to a sure trap: it is his duty to hear the confession of the American crim-

inal, who is said to be Catholic. The priest knows he goes to death. Although he considered

himself a bad priest; his Golgotha road and martyrdom are kind of absolution of his previ-

ous sins. He is portrayed by Greene as a sympathetic character. His strength lies in his reli -

gious worldview, that can give people’s lives essence that secular characters like mr Tench

lack.

There is another clerical person in the novel: padre José. In his lack of

determinedness, he contrasts both with the priest, who stands for his ideas till the end, as

well as with the lieutenant, who represents a different worldview with much zeal. José was

not a corrupt, selfish priest, perhaps his humbleness saved him from that. But it is his lack

of courage and willpower that eventually places him in a ’’lose-lose situation’’ – becoming

married, his life was saved. But this existence is useless, miserable with no hope in the

future nor in the afterlife.

In sum, I can conclude that the main characters of this novel represent Graham

Greene’s own convictions. The lieutenant is a revolutionary, a socialist. Though Greene

aligned with the left, he was not a communist, therefore this character also reveals

Greene’s understanding that revolutionary excesses and totalitarianism must be avoided.

He definitely did not support anticlerical campaigns. The priest is a Christian character, a

Catholic like Greene himself. Like Greene, the priest is not blameless, yet he is a martyr.

Although the lieutenant and the priest are opponents, for Greene, they are both right in

some aspects. Greene has convincingly portrayed these characters, their ideas and strug-

gles.

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References

Burgess, Anthony. 1967. Politics in the Novels of Graham Greene. Journal of Contempo-

rary History. 2:2, 93—99.

Cadegan, Una M. 1996. How Realistic Can a Catholic Writer Be? Richard Sullivan and

American Catholic Literature. Religion and American Culture. 6:1, 35–61.

Camp, Roderic Ai. 1997. Crossing swords: politics and religion in Mexico. Available at http://books.google.ee/books?id=4Ty0-krS068C&printsec=frontcover&hl=en&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false., accessed January 16, 2010. Greene, Graham. 1990. The Power and the Glory. New York: Viking, 1990.

Hortmann, Wilhelm. 1964. Graham Greene: the Burnt-Out Catholic. Twentieth Century

Literature, X (July 1964), 64—76.

King, Adele. 1992. Graham Greene. The Power and the Glory. Notes by Adele King.

Harlow : Longman ; Beirut : York Press.

Knight, Alan. 1994. Popular Culture and the Revolutionary State in Mexico, 1910-1940.

Hispanic American Historical Review 74: 3, 393—444.

McManners, John (ed.). 1990. The Oxford illustrated history of Christianity. Oxford; New

York : Oxford University Press.

Miłosz, Czesław. 1999. Vangistatud mõistus. Tallinn: Perioodika. (The Captive Mind)

Oakeshott, Michael. 1956. On Being Conservative. In Rationalism in Politics and Other

Essays 168—196. London: Methuen, 1962.

Pryce-Jones, David. 1963. Graham Greene. Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd.

Ridgeway, Stan. 2001. Monoculture, Monopoly, and the Mexican Revolution. : Tomás

Garrido Canabal and the Standard Fruit Company in Tabasco (1920–1935). Mexican Stud-

ies / Estudios Mexicanos, 17:1 (Winter, 2001), 143—169.

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Ruiz, Ramón Eduardo. 1993. Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People

New York: Norton.

Shafarevich, Igor. 1980. The Socialist Phenomenon. New York: Harper & Row. Available

at http://www.robertlstephens.com/essays/essay_frame.php?essayroot=shafarevich/

&essayfile=001SocialistPhenomenon.html, accessed January 17, 2010.

Spurling, John. 1983. Graham Greene, 1983. London and New York: Methuen.

Updike, John. 1990. Introduction by John Updike. In: Graham Greene The Power and the

Glory. New York: Viking, 1990.

Wolf, Eric R. 1999. Peasant wars of the twentieth century. Available at

http://books.google.com/books?

id=Lt6UAU6IdPMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Peasant+wars+of+the+twentieth+century

%92%92&cd=1#v=onepage&q=Peasant%20wars%20of%20the%20twentieth%20century

%E2%80%99%E2%80%99&f=false, accessed January 17, 2010.

Resümee

TARTU ÜLIKOOLINGLISE FILOLOOGIA OSAKOND

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Erik Jesse‘’The main characters in the novel The Power and the Glory as representatives of Greene’s convictions’’"Romaani ‘’Vägi ja au’’ peamised tegelased Graham Greene’i veendumuste esindajatena"Bakalaureusetöö2010 Lehekülgede arv: 32

Annotatsioon:

See töö käsitleb inglise katoliikliku kirjaniku Graham Greene’i romaani "Vägi ja au". Töö autor uurib, kuidas romaani peamised tegelaskujud kajastavad Greene’i enda arusaamu. Uurimistöö tugineb romaani teksti analüüsile, teadusartiklitele, mis käsitlevad Graham Greene’i maailmavaadet, ja mõnele teosele Mehhiko ajaloost.

Graham Greene’i romaanil "Vägi ja au" on olemas ajalooline taust. 1930ndatel organiseeris Mehhiko revolutsiooniline valitsus riikliku ateistliku, antiklerikaalse kampaania. Eriti rängad olid repressioonid vaimulikkonna ja usklike vastu lõunaosariikides Chiapases ja Tabascos. Greene, ise katoliiklane, viibis 1938. aastal kiriku ülesandel Mehhikos, et dokumenteerida antiklerikaalseid repressioone. Romaani peategelane on nimeta lõunaosariigi ainus allesjäänud tegutsev preester, nn viskipreester. Tema peamine vastane on leitnant, keda on kujutatud askeetliku revolutsionäärina. Leitnant on vasakpoolne, nagu ka Greene; Greene’ile ilmselt sümpatiseerib leitnandi eesmärk: parandada lihtrahva elutingimusi. Ometi on leitnant nii radikaalne, tema ateism nii fanaatiline, et ta meenutab Venemaa kommunistlikke poliitikuid.

Preestri tegelaskuju kajastab Graham Greene’i katoliiklikku tausta; nagu Greene ise, pole ka tema laitmatu pühak. Hüüdnimi ‘’viskipreester’’ viitab preestri alkoholi- tarvitamisele, samuti on tal ühe külanaisega tütar. Romaani läbib preestri Kolgata teekond – põgenemine teda jälitavate leitnandi meeste eest. Kõigi raskuste kiuste edasi tegutsev preester näitab katoliikluse tugevust, sellele vastandub padre José konformism: regiooni valitsuse nõudele alludes on ta abiellunud. Seeläbi säilitas ta elu, kuid kaotas kõik muu.

Nii leitnant kui preester on mõnes mõttes sümpaatsed tegelased, mõlemad esindavad Graham Greene’i enda seisukohti. Leitnandi kuju näitab samas ka totalitaarse maailmavaate ohtusid.

Märksõnad: inglise kirjandus, Graham Greene, katoliiklus, ateism, Mehhiko ajalugu

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