After having read many of Graham Greene’s works this
trimester, I must admit that it has changed the way I read literature. When I read
that Fowler is not engaged in the situation in Vietnam, I expect him to be
distant and withdrawn from the events. Instead, we see Fowler’s opinion seep
through at times, until he finally realizes it is impossible to not be engagé. Similarly, when I read that
Scobie wants to attain peace, I expect him to head towards that goal rather
than go out of his way to involve himself in others’ problems. The Third Man is narrated by a character
who is biased, and appears untrustworthy in the beginning. Thanks to Graham
Greene, I am not so easily trusting of the narrator any more. That may seem
cynical, but in fact, it is eye-opening. You read each word over carefully,
thinking whether or not the narrator is telling the truth, hiding a secret, or
simply rejecting reality. It’s a step further in critical reading that I would
never have discovered without reading Greene.
The whisky priest from The Power and the Glory is my absolute
favorite character from Greene’s masterpieces. Despite his flaws and his past,
the priest is practically a saint. However, he believes that he is a terrible sinner;
he sees the good in everyone but himself. Therefore, we cannot take the priest’s
thoughts completely to heart. First, we have to compare them to his actions
because actions speak louder than words, especially in this case. The priest’s
selfless acts contrast his pitiful state of mind, and Greene leaves it up to us
to evaluate which is more important. The
Power and the Glory also includes the famous, wonderful insight: “Hate was
just a failure of imagination.” This is actually a very Christian notion.
Everyone’s situation is different, and if we look hard enough, we can find the
origin of someone’s faults so that we may then forgive them. Those seven words
are packed with so much meaning and wisdom about love, forgiveness, compassion,
and even faith, that only Graham Greene could have compressed so much thought
into just one short phrase.
Greene’s characters are
multi-dimensional and paradoxical. Greene created such genuine characters that
it was not even possible to hate the villains. Relating back to his insightful
line, every antagonist had some quality that evoked pity or sympathy, removing
hatred from the picture entirely. Greene made each character, even the minor
ones, multi-faceted and complex so that it was impossible not to get
emotionally attached to them, and thus he got a more intense reaction from the
reader at the end of a novel. So reading
Graham Greene has taught me not to fully trust the narrator, and to love and
forgive, which is paradoxical in and of itself, which only adds to the point
that Graham Greene was a tremendous author.
2 comments:
A biased narrator indeed seems to be a hallmark of Greene literature - so much so that as Piotr has mentioned, the narrator is often untrustworthy. I think this comes across most clearly in The Quiet American in the case of Fowler, where there exists a dichotomy between speech and thought, which is portrayed through the narration. If the reader is only getting the dialog, they would probably believe Fowler when he claims repeatedly that he keeps himself separated from the situation around him, like a good reporter. The truth, of course, is that Fowler is certainly tied to the situation, but this is never really expressed aloud until the very end of the novel. Instead, the reader must in this case depend on a biased narrative in order to gain the full picture, as it is only in the narrative that Fowler's thoughts emerge, and it is from these unguarded thoughts that we can draw our conclusions. Stylistically, of course, it is much more effective ot let the reader figure out whats going on for themselves, but it also adds a human element to Fowler as well. He insists repeatedly that he is not engaged; he may even believe it of himself. His true feelings are only revealed to the reader, creating an intimacy between Fowler and his audience that would otherwise be absent.
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