Imagination Or Reality

Graham Greene is one of the most important English writers in the 20th century. He is versatile and prolific. In his long literary career, Greene has written novels, short stories, plays, travel books, essays, criticism and books for children. But his reputation greatly counts on his novels, most of which pursue his obsession with the darker side of human nature within the context of a spy thriller or adventure story. In Greene's novels, readers easily find a literary world which is a dark land filled with violence, guilt, corruption and other forms of evil and is inhabited by a variety of troubled soul: the coldhearted killer who is troubled by betrayal, the seeming innocent American who is involved in the terrible bombing, the teenage boy caught in a web of murder, filled with hatred against the society, the priest struggling between his faith and secular temptation, the policeman officer of integrity falling victim to corruption, and so on and so forth. It is the gray world which is labeled Greeneland by critics. But the definition of Greeneland is controversial. Some critics reclaim that Greeneland is Graham Greene's imaginative terrain which is distorted and far from reality while other critics think that Greeneland is the world truthfully reflecting the reality. As to me, Greeneland is the organic combination of imagination and reality; based on Greene's own experience and careful observation of the surrounding world, Greeneland is a literary world created by Greene by artistic means; it is the microcosm of contemporary world tainted with seediness, violence, corruption and other forms of evil and its inhabitants, such as Pinkie in Brighton Rock(1938), the whiskey priest in The Power and the Glory(1940) and Scobie in The Heart of the Matter(1948), are capable of good and evil acts and always escape from danger, terror and doubt, etc. On the other hand, to combative Greene, Greeneland is more than a mirror. It is most likely a scalpel examining the darkness and evil in the contemporary world which has risen out of his experience as a senior journalist. In the thesis I take for example Greene's religious trilogy, his three best novels: Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory and The Heart of the Matter to expound the term—Greeneland from the perspective of character, plot and theme. In terms of character, although Pinkie in Brighton Rock, the whiskey priest in The Power and the Glory and Scobie in The Heart of the Matter live in different places and have different experiences, they share something in common: they are not good Catholics in traditional sense because they all commit sins, but they have the makings of a saint—some of them have extraordinary courage or some are upright, kind-hearted and have strong sense of responsibility. They could have done good to human beings, but they have to choose evil to survive in the troubled world where evil runs wild and finally can't avoid falling victim to it. Concerning plot, these three novels all have the chase-escape plot: Pinkie, the murderer, is chased by Ida with strong sense of justice; the whiskey priest, the wanted man in police's eyes, is escaping from the lieutenant's close hunting; Scobie, a fallen good man, is pursued by two women he cares about. What's more, the chase-escape plot of this kind contributes greatly to exemplify Greene's major concern about people's predicaments in the contemporary society, such as alienation, betrayal, adultery, etc. After analyzing character and plot, we can find that in these three novels Greene mainly intends to describe the struggle between good and evil, which is easily detected in these characters'experiences: in Brighton Rock, Ida, brave, warm-hearted and having strong sense of justice, has been fighting against with selfish, cold-hearted and ruthless Pinkie; in The Power and the Glory the conflict between good and evil is explicitly shown in the whiskey priest, who, a contradictory hero, is a priest but commits sins; in The Heart of the Matter , Scobie, the police officer, has been having the unrelenting struggle with the fallen society where he lives and other forces of evil. Finally the thesis focuses on the connotation and denotation of Greeneland. Greeneland is the literary land created by Greene, to great extent, realistically reflecting the contemporary world and exposing its darkness. That's to say, Greeneland is the organic combination of imagination and reality. Devout Catholic as he is, he writes religious novels not to advocate dogmas of Catholicism as other Catholic writers. Greene uses Catholicism, as a reference to expose the dark side of the world more efficiently and describe the fighting between good and evil more vividly. Graham Greene still is an important writer of 20th century even if he doesn't deal with religious issue in his novels, because of his topical and realistic description of environment, clever arrangement of plots, penetrating analysis of characters'psychology and his profound insight into human dilemma. What's more, many writers are influenced by Greene all over the world, including the writers in Europe, America, England and Asia as well. Although strictly speaking Greene is not a Catholic writer, his novels with Catholic color play an important role in his works, whose importance lies in his deep concern for contemporary human world from the perspective of the conjunction of religious faith and human fate. We also can find some shadow of Greene in his novels. Therefore, Greeneland not only reflects the reality but also can be traced in Greene's own experience. In a word, Greeneland is the microcosm of the contemporary world and it reflects the reality and acts as a weapon against its darkness and evil.