Analysis Of Human-Place Relations In The Heart Of The Matter

Henry Graham Greene(1904—1991)was regarded as one of the most distinguished British novelists of the 20th century.In his novels,Greene depicts and thinks about the modern people’s living predicament of lost faith,mental crisis,existential confinement and fragmentation.The various living conditions and struggles for survival that his characters are confronted with in diverse kinds of space are the major themes in his novels.Based on Wesley A.Kort’s theory of human-place relations,the thesis will conduct the analysis of one of the seminal novels of Greene,The Heart of the Matter and the fictional space in the novel will be divided into three categories:social space,familial space,personal space.According to the norm of positive human-place relations designed by Wesley Kort,the thesis will focus on the interaction and formation of the characters in three kinds of space,for analysis of the effects of his constructing positive human-place relations on himself and the space.The thesis argues that the relation of the character with space is pivotal to interpret the novel.In The Heart of the Matter,during World War Ⅱ,the hero,Scobie,has adjusted himself to the social conditions in a British colonial town and ever succeeded in easing the bitterness of his family life,experiencing freedom and peace in his personal space.However,through a whole complex of crises,Scobie,has violated laws and secular morality,and suffered from contradictions between Catholic belief and ethics.In the end he has to become subject to the powerful and corruptive society at the expense of loss of peace and vitality for good.His efforts to construct the positive human-place relations have proven to be a failure and hence he chooses to resolve the human-place relations in crisis by sacrificing himself.Through the discussion of the human-place relations,it will acquire a clearly objective understanding of motives and the fate of the character.It will be also learned that the relations between characters and spaces play an important role in deepening the theme in the analysis of literary texts.