Graham Greene’s The Power and The Glory, Part 2, Chapters 2-3 (pp. 103-140)

I. Overview
         In the midst of an obscure parade passing through town and an approaching storm, a beggar is passing from person to person in want of food. While the beggar is soliciting for food he approaches a man in a “drill suit” who also has not eaten in some time; although he is not in want of food, but instead in want of “spirits,” specifically wine (103, 104). The beggar lets the “man in drill” know that this is his “lucky day” since he can secure an introduction for him to a man who has access to “real fine Vera Cruz brandy;” however, the “man in drill explained, ‘it’s really wine I want’” (105).  The beggar takes the “man in drill” to meet the “cousin of the Governor…[who] can get anything… anything at all (106). In the midst of the man’s introduction, and the purchase of wine and brandy, the man is coerced into having to share his “spirits” with the Governor’s cousin, the beggar, and later the Chief of Police who also makes his way into the Governor’s cousin’s room. It begins to rain and the three men finish off the “man in drill’s” wine and leave him with only “three fingers left” of brandy (115). This upsets the “man in drill” but he is powerless to stop the men from drinking the wine, and must take what is left of the brandy.
         The rain stops and the Whisky priest makes his way through town. While entering a cantina he accidentally bumps into a “Red Shirt” who discovers that the priest is hiding something, a bottle of some sorts, but does not know that he is the Whisky Priest. The “Red Shirt” demands the unknown bottle, the Priest “hauled at the brandy bottle,” bursts through the doors in an attempt to escape, and a chase ensues (116).  During the priest’s endeavor to escape he sees Padre Jose in the window of his apartment and pleads to him for help. Wanting nothing to do with the Whisky Priest, Padre Jose screeches at him to “go and die quickly” and slams the door (118). The Whisky Priest is captured and thrown into jail for the night, which becomes his own confessional booth. The people within the jail cell do not give the priest’s identity away, and neither does the “half-caste” who has now been hired to find and turn in the priest. The police nor the lieutenant, who speaks to the Priest, discover the Priest is within their midst.

II. Analysis: Motif-What Darkness Reveals
         Throughout the novel Graham Greene uses darkness as a motif to unveil, bring to light the fallible traits of the Whisky Priest. Greene reveals the uncertainty of the Whisky Priest’s circumstances and tears down the security and comforts he might have once had to bring him closer to humanity. Upon entering the cell, the Whisky Priest stands “perfectly still and wait[s] for his sight to return,” he waits for “a sign- an indication (122, 132). As he enters further into the cell he is not able to perceive the people, or anything else, in regards to his, or their, situation until he sits deep within the cell and is encompassed by the people: “Edging in…suddenly he found himself against the back wall” (123). The darkness reveals how far he has wandered from actually feeling true emotion true sympathy for the burdens of the people. In the darkness he realizes that he has “nothing at all”(122). Immediately the people within the cell begin to confess what circumstance brought them to such a place and the Whisky Priest’s true identity is revealed: “You talk like a priest” (124). The Whisky Priest can no longer hide, nor can run any longer, from his true self: “He said after a moment’s hesitation, very distinctly, ‘I am a priest’” (125). Among the people in the dark cell, The Whisky Priest acknowledges and confesses: “You see I am a bad priest and a bad man… I am a Whisky Priest… I have a child…[and] I know-from experience- how much beauty Satan carried down with him when he fell” (126, 127, 130). No matter how uncomfortable he feels, the Whisky Priest cannot move or escape from the cell and so must face the people and the true finality his circumstances may bring: “He tried to move his feet from under him… now they were lifeless: all feeling gone. Oh well, let them stay. He wouldn’t have to use them often again” (127). For the Whisky Priest, the night seems to stand still so that these revelations may be uncovered: “there was nothing to indicate time passing… he had begun to forget that it would ever be another day…but all night he had been realizing that time depends on clocks and the light wouldn’t change” (133). Greene reveals that every minute in life is set and nothing we do can change the fact that just as we are born, so must we die.
III. Questions
1. How does the jail cell upset or disrupt social relations?
2. While sleeping in the cell, what does the Whisksy Priest’s dream reveal?