The Extended Allegory in The Power and The Glory Essay -- Power and Th

The Extended Allegory in The Power and The idealisation graham Greene pieced together The Power and the Glory from his own personal memoirs in 1940 after a three-year trip to Mexico. Drawing from his own observations of a lower-ranking town torn betwixt the anti- sacred laws of the secular government and the peoples religious beliefs, Greene created the stratum of a Catholic priest being pursued by the jurisprudence to illustrate the conflicting relationship between the church and bring up (Greene 2-4). Greene apply his experiences in Mexico to create an extended allegory that illustrates the conflict between the dickens world views and, in turn, reveals his own values and philosophy. Drawing from his experience in Mexico, Greene developed a whiskey priest, a character introduced to Greene by a friend in Mexico in a story of a intoxicated priest that christened a child by the wrong name, to embody the religious world view. The priest, who remains nameless throughout th e novel to emphasize his allegoric role, is less an individual than a symbol of the Church and of the cumulative sapience of the past, in short, of Western Humanism (DeVitis 89). The priest, however, is seen as a traitor to the state and to his religion. The last Catholic priest in a secular Mexican state, the priests photograph is hung next to that of a notorious American gangster on the wall of the natural law office. The priests tendency towards gin, cowardliness, and his moral weakness make him a traitor to his faith and religious order. On the representative level of the novel, the priests career from the police is seen as a flight from God and away from comme il faut a saint (DeVitis 90). Refusing to accept his destiny of being captured by the police and becom... ...ce into paradise (Hynes 67). Only after the priests execution is the lieutenant forced to win his own emptiness and does Greene reveal his religious compassion. Although often criticized for being general ly Roman Catholic, The Power and the Glory masterfully illustrates the intense conflict between the secular and religious world views (Hynes 70). By developing complex allegorical characters, Graham Greene achieves an almost myth-like quality. Works Cited Allot, Kenneth and Miriam Farris, The Art of Graham Greene. New York Russell & Russell, 1951. DeVitis, A. A., Graham Greene. New York Twayne Publishers, 1964. Greene, Graham, The Power and the Glory. New York The Viking Press, 1940. Hynes, Samuel ed., Graham Greene A Collection of fine Essays. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey Prentice-Hall, 1973.