Dr. Ramirez

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[Henry] Graham Greene: born in Berkhamstead, England Oct. 2, 1904
(year Conrad's Nostromo was published) died April 3, 1991
Important works include:

•      Stamboul Train 1932
•      Brighton Rock 1938--represents the Angry Young Man--precursor to the punk movement
•      Confidential Agent 1939
•      Power and the Glory 1940 published in the US as Labyrinthine Ways
•      The End of the Affair 1951-film with Julianne Moore
•      Our Man in Havana 1958
•      Travels with My Aunt 1970
•      The Honorary Consul 1973 (takes place in Argentina)

Greene distinguishes between travel and tourism (Havana, Sierra Leone, Congo, Mexico and Panama)
Inheritor of Empire--combines loathing and nostalgia for the Empire and for the exotic
Engages in Americanist discourse (British writers representing Latin America, along with Helen Maria Williams, Aphra Behn, Joseph
Conrad, Malcolm Lowry (Under the Volcano), D.H. Lawrence (Plumed Serpent)
Themes:

•      awareness of borders
•      outsiders
•      the popular response to political repression
•      Catholicism and its contradictions
•      interested in darkness, seediness, the problem of evil
•      Alienation and separation in the text.

Graham Greene. The Power and the Glory
Setting:
1930's Mexico, anti-Catholic and anti-foreign movements; also a time of fierce nationalism
Characters

• Lieutenant:  neat, orderly man with a mission; he wants to capture the priest; moral according to his own code: authoritarian and anti-Catholic, anti-foreigner; separated, lives alone, in monastic conditions.  Maintains his ideals, sense of order. critic of the church.  Recalls his own childhood and the church demanding sacrifices but not giving much in return
• Whisky Priest:  Educated, speaks English; trained in the U.S.; weak willed or at least he is compromised; hollow face; he has seen better days; Wears a suit, attaché, book in Latin; makes small concessions, leaves off his trappings of importance
• Mestizo: demands humanity from Whisky Priest
• Luis:  young teen, rebellious; questions religion; part of family that reads about the saint named Juan. Inspired by the Lieutenant, not by stories of martyrs; interested in military
• Mexican family: Brothers, Sister, Mother (devoted): practicing Catholics
• Father: Patient, also recognizes that the Church has left the region
• Juan: martyr who has died for his beliefs (not a character)
• Captain Fellows: married and runs plantation
• Mrs. Fellows: his ailing wife who always complains.
• Coral: the English girl who studies through a correspondence course, aged beyond her years; harbors the priest
• Padre Jose: fattened boar, makes a compromise which makes him miserable; married and he is bullied by his wife; he is spiritual but doesn't practice; he refuses his duties as a priest; too weak to resist authority
• His wife: bony, directive; formerly his housekeeper; she is her husband's penance
• Mr. Tench--the dentist, lonely, alienated, down on his luck, forgetful; Englishman, separated from wife, lacks ability to get out of his situation; not an active participant in his own life; leads a shabby existence with broken tools of the trade, defers reality
• Chief of Police--pink face, bloated, he oversees the region; has a toothache