Examine The Power and the Glory as a psychological novel
Introduction:
The Power and the Glory of Graham Greene may be rightly called a psychological novel. Psychological analysis is the chief motive of the novelist. No doubt, the novel is not totally devoid of action, or external action, but the chief interest of the story lies in the study of the inner mind of the protagonist, i.e. the whisky priest.
A character is revealed by not only what he does, but also what he thinks, what he intends, how he reacts, etc. In fact, it is the thoughts of a person that throw light on the real motives of his actions and give truer insight into his character. This is all true of The Power and the Glory.
In this novel, Greene has taken recourse to the psychoanalysis technique to explore the inner mind of the whisky priest. This analysis is more appropriate in the case of the priest because he is a man of introspective temperament.
Greene's Use of Stream of Consciousness Technique :
The stream-of-consciousness technique which was started by such novelists as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf has been followed by Graham Greene in his novels. This technique enables the writer to explore the inner minds of the characters.
Not only the consciousness but the unconsciousness is also laid bare by the novelist In The Power and the Glory Greene lays bare the inmost recesses of the mind of the priest. Often the writer makes the priest speak to himself.
And this is done through the means of what is known as interior monologues. Sometimes the writer also uses the medium of dream to reveal the subconscious or the unconscious of the hero.
The Interior Monologues of the Priest:
In the whole of the novel, we notice the priest brooding and contemplating about many things including his past. In the very opening chapter when he is on his way to a dying woman's place in some village he begins to feel that 'he was abandoned'. He prays, "Let me be caught soon...Let me be caught." When he is on his way to the village of Maria, he indulges himself in thoughts of his past.
Greene throws some light on the mind of the priest at this moment: "In the old days he often practised a gesture a long while in front of a glass so that he had come to know his own face, as well as an actor does. It was a form of humility-his own natural face hadn't seemed the right one.
It was a buffoon's face, good enough for the mild jokes to women, but unsuitable at the altar rail. He had tried to change it and indeed, he thought, indeed I have succeeded, they'll never recognize me now, and the cause of his happiness came back to him like the taste of brandy, promising temporary relief from fear, loneliness, a lot of things."
But more revealing is the monologue in which the priest remembers his shady past. He talks to himself about so many surrenders. And his going again to the village of Maria is yet another surrender. "The years behind him were littered with similar surrenders-feast days and fast days and days of abstinence had been the first to go then he had ceased to trouble more than occasionally about his breviary and finally he had left it behind altogether at the port in one of his periodic attempts at escape.
Then the altar stone went-too dangerous to carry with him... The routine of his life was like a dam was cracked and forgetfulness came dribbling through, wiping out, this and that. Five years ago he had given way to despair-the unforgivable sin - and he was going back to the scene of despair with a curious lightening of his heart. For he had got over despair too.
He was a bad priest, he knew it. They had a word for a whisky priest." The priest thinks that one day his failures will choke up the source of grace. But he will carry on the journey of his life with fear, weariness and shame-faced lightness. In the village of Maria, the mind of the priest experiences a chain of thoughts about his past actions, his feelings about his relations with Maria, etc.
When Maria advises him to leave the village after some rest and tells him that "I have saved a little brandy for you", he begins to think: "If I go, I shall meet other priests: I shall go to confession: I shall feel contribution and be forgiven: eternal life will begin for me all over again.
The Church taught that it was every man's duty to save his own soul. The simple ideas of hell and heaven moved in his brain: life without books, without contact with educated men, had peeled away from his memory everything but the simplest outline of the mystery." In the village of Maria, the priest experiences a dilemma. He is a sinner and therefore it would be safe for the villagers if he leaves the village. He does not want to give his example to them.
He thinks: "He was the only priest the children could remember; it was from him they would take their ideas of the faith. But it was from him too they took God-in their mouths. When he was gone it would be as if God in all this space between the sea and the mountains ceased to exist. Wasn't it his duty to stay, even if they despised him, even if they were murdered for his sake, even if they were corrupted by their example?" The priest finds himself abandoned in his dilemma. He has nobody to consult. He feels utterly lonely in this world.
Once again when he sees his daughter, Brigitta, he begins to think about the nature of his relationship with Maria: "They had spent no love in her conception: just fear and despair and half a bottle of brandy and the sense of loneliness had driven him to an act which horrified him and this sacred shame-faced overpowering love was the result." His thoughts about his relationship with Maria move on taxing his mind.
He thinks, "Once for five minutes seven years ago they had been lovers-if you could give that name to a relationship in which she had never used his baptismal name: to her, it was just an incident, a scratch which heals completely in the healthy flesh: she was even proud of having been the priest's woman. He alone carried the wound, as though the whole world had died."
Through his interior monologues, we learn about the priest's concern about his daughter Brigitta. On one occasion, he prays to God, "O God, give me any kind of death-without contribution, in a state of sin-only saving this child." The priest is aware of his responsibility towards the child.
She is more 'important than a whole continent' for him. Whenever he finds himself nearing execution, he begins to think about Brigitta. The memory and concern for Brigitta have become his weak point as a priest. During his last night in the prison, he desperately thinks of her. "As the liquid touched his tongue he remembered his child, coming in out of the glare; the sullen sul unhappy knowledgeable face. He said, 'Oh God, help her. Damn me, I deserve it, but let her live for ever.' He feels deeply concerned about her welfare. His consciousness of his sin of fornication opens the springs of overwhelming love for the child born of that sin.
In one interior monologue, the priest condemns himself for his feeling of pride. When the mestizo forces his company upon the priest and they stay in a hut, he does not sleep for fear of betrayal. The author has recorded the thoughts of the priest on this occasion: "He lay listening to the heavy breathing of the half-caste and wondered why he had not gone the same road as Padre Jose and conformed to the laws.
I was too ambitious, he thought, that was it. Perhaps Padre Padre Jose was the better man-he was so humble that he was ready to accept any amount of mockery: at the best of times; he had never considered himself worthy of the priesthood." The priest remembers his good old days when he was ambitious. "He was no more intellectual than Padre Jose...he wasn't content to remain all his life the priest of not a very large parish. His ambitions came back to him now as something faintly comic."
The priest thinks that had he married Maria he would have been living on a pension. But he did not do so on account of his sense of pride. Greene records the priest's thoughts thus: "This was pride, devilish pride, lying here, offering his shirt to the man who wanted to betray him. Even his attempts to escape had been half-hearted because of his pride-the sin by which the angels fell.
When he was the only priest left in the state his pride had been all the greater; he thought himself the devil of a fellow carrying God around at the risk of his life; one day there would be a reward...He prayed in the half-light: "O God, forgive me I am poud, lustful, greedy man.
I have loved authority too much. These people are martyrs-protecting me with their own lives. They deserve a martyr to care for them-not a man like me, who loves all the wrong things. Perhaps I had better escape-if I tell people how it is over here, perhaps they will send a good man with a fire of love." Thus, thinking, the priest finds himself to be in a dwindling situation. He is not able to decide on a suitable course of action for him to follow.
The priest's final interior monologue appears at the end of the novel when he is going to be executed. This monologue is quite significant in that it reveals the spiritual predicament of the priest. The author records this monologue thus: "He crouched on the floor with empty brandy-flask in his hand trying to remember an Act of Contrition.
O God I am sorry and beg pardon for all my sins...crucified...worthy of the dreadful punishments.' He was confused, his mind was on other things: it was not the good death for which one always prayed. He caught sight of his own shadow on the cell wall; it had a look of surprise and grotesque unimportance.
What a fool he had been to think that he was strong enough to stay when others fled. What an impossible fellow I am, he thought, and how useless. I have done nothing for anybody. I might just as well have never lived. His parents were dead soon he wouldn't be a memory-perhaps after all he was not at the moment afraid of damnation - even the fear of pain was in the background.
He felt only an immense disappointment because he had to go to God empty-handed, with nothing done at all. It seemed at that moment, that it would have been quite easy to have been a saint. It would only have needed a little self-restraint and a little courage. He felt like someone who had missed happiness by seconds at an appointed place. He knew now that in the end there was only one thing that counted-to be a saint."
Dreams of the Priest:
The inner consciousness of the priest is also revealed through the device of dreams. There is a dream in which he knocks at the door of a doctor's house with his child bleeding to death by his side. This dream has been introduced to show the priest's concern and anxiety about his child Brigitta.
The other dream occurs to the priest during the night before his execution. When the priest falls asleep with his head against the wall, he has "a curious dream. He dreamed he was sitting at a cafe table in front of the high altar of the cathedral. About six dishes were spread before him, and he was eating hungrily. There was a smell of incense and an odd sense of elation.
The dishes-like all food in dreams-did not taste of much, but he had a sense that when he had finished them, he would have the best dish of all. A priest passed to and fro before the altar saying Mass, but he took no notice; the service no longer seemed to concern him.
At last, the six plates were empty; someone out of sight rang the Sanctus bell and the serving priest knelt before he raised the Host. But he sat on, just waiting, paying no attention to God over the altar, as though there was a God for other people and not for him.
Then the glass by his plate began to fill with wine and looking up he saw that the child from the banana station was serving him." This dream is quite significant because it throws light on the past of the priest when he used to eat too much and lead a life of sensuous pleasures. His sense of guilt about his habit of drinking is also seen. Thus through dreams, Greene brings out the inner state of the mind of the priest.
Interior Monologues About Other Characters:
Greene takes recourse to psychoanalysis in the case of his other characters also. For example, he unfolds the mind of the lieutenant through a number of monologues. When the lieutenant lies on his bed in his hut, he begins to think about the priest shot by the Red Shirts.
He also thinks of Padre Jose who now lives with his housekeeper as his wife. The lieutenant thinks that the Red Shirts had shot about five priests and the best solution to this problem would have been that these priests should conform to the new ideology of the state.
In this monologue, the lieutenant expresses his views about the priests and his duty to liquidate priesthood from his state. In another monologue, the lieutenant expresses his intention to do anything for the new generation. These thoughts come to his mind when he meets the boy Luis for the second time. He thinks: "First the church and then the foreigner and then the politician-even his own chief would one day have to go. He wanted to begin the world again with them in a desert."
The lieutenant wants to scrap corruption and superstition from the minds of the children because these things have brought misery to them. These monologues, thus, throw light on the inner workings of the mind of the lieutenant.
But the more significant is the dream which he sees after his mission is over. He does not remember anything of the dream except laughter all the time and a long passage in which there is no door. This dream shows the futility of the mission of the lieutenant. He now feels the purposelessness of his life.
There are occasions when Padre Jose is seen indulging himself in thoughts about his situation. After his renunciation of religion, Jose feels quite frustrated. A perpetual conflict is seen to be going on all the time in his mind. Likewise, there is some conflict in the mind of Mr. Tench when he thinks about his ailment and loneliness on account of his separation from his wife and children.
Hence, it is evident that The Power and the Glory is certainly a psychological novel. The chief interest lies in the study of the character of the whisky priest. The author has successfully revealed to us the workings of the inner mind of the priest.
The priest has led a sinful life but his thoughts prompt us to nourish feelings of pity and sympathy for him. The thoughts that go on in the mind of the priest give a real glimpse into his character. It is on account of his thoughts that we are ready to accept him as a martyr and a saint. Thus, Greene has beautifully portrayed the character of the priest through penetrating psychoanalysis.
