The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

First published: 1940

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Psychological realism

Time of plot: 1930’s

Locale: Mexico

Principal characters

• The Priest, a fugitive priest
• Marcía, the mother of his child
• Father José, a renegade priest
• Lieutenant of Police,
• Poor Mestizo,

The Story:

In a state in Mexico, the Catholic Church has been outlawed and the priests driven underground on threat of being executed. After several months, the governor’s office announces that one priest is still moving from village to village carrying on the work of the Church by administering the sacraments and saying Mass. A young lieutenant of police, an ardent revolutionist and an anticlerical, persuades his chief to let him search for the priest, who, as the authorities see it, is guilty of treason.

Two photographs are pasted up together in the police station. One is the picture of a fugitive American bank robber who has killed several police officers in Texas; the other is that of the priest. No one notices the irony, least of all the young lieutenant, who is far more interested in arresting the clergyman. At the same time that the officer is receiving permission to make a search for the priest, the priest is in the village; he has come there to get aboard a boat that will take him to the city of Vera Cruz and to safety.

Before the priest can board the boat, word comes to him that an Indian woman is dying several miles inland. True to his calling, the priest mounts a mule and sets out to administer the last rites to the dying woman, although he realizes that he might not find another ship to carry him to safety. There is one other priest in the vicinity, Father José. Father José, however, had been cowardly enough to renounce the Church, even to the point of taking a wife, a shrewish old woman. The authorities pay no attention to him at all, for they think, in Father José’s case correctly, that a priest who has renounced his vows is a detriment and a shame to the Church.

After completing his mission, the priest returns to the coast, where he spends the night in a banana warehouse. The English manager on the plantation allows him to hide there. The following day, he sets out on muleback for the interior, hoping to find refuge from the police and from the revolutionary party of Red Shirts. As he travels, he thinks of his own past and of himself as a poor example of the priesthood. The priest is a whiskey priest, a cleric who would do almost anything for a drink of spirits. In addition, he has in a moment of weakness fathered a child by a woman in an inland village. Although he considers himself a weak man and a poor priest, he is still determined to carry on the work of the Church as long as he can, not because he wants to be a martyr but because he knows nothing else to do.

After twelve hours of travel, he reaches the village where his onetime mistress and his child live. The woman takes him in overnight, and the following morning he says a Mass for the villagers. Before he can escape, the police enter the village. Marcía claims him as her husband, and his child, a girl seven years old, names him as her father. In that manner, because of his earlier sins, he escapes. Meanwhile, the police decide on a new tactic in uncovering the fugitive. As they pass through each village, they take a hostage. When a certain length of time passes without the apprehension of the priest, a hostage is shot. In this way, the lieutenant of police in charge of the hunt hopes to persuade the people to betray their priest. After the police leave the village without discovering him, the priest mounts his mule and continues on his way. He travels northward in an effort to escape the police and, if possible, to make his way temporarily into another state.

Some hours after leaving the village, the priest meets with a mestizo who joins him. Before long, the mestizo discovers that the priest is the one being sought by police. He promises that, as a good Catholic, he will not betray the secret, but the priest is afraid that the promised reward of seven hundred pesos will be too much of a temptation for the poor man.

When they reach a town, however, it is the priest’s own weakness that puts him into the hands of the police. He has to have some liquor, the sale of which is against the law. He manages to buy some illegally, but his possession of the contraband is discovered by one of the revolutionary Red Shirts, who come after him. The priest is tracked down by a posse, caught, and placed in jail. Fortunately, he is not recognized by the police, but since he has no money, he is kept in jail to work out the fine.

The lieutenant of police, who is searching feverishly for him, unknowingly does the priest a good turn. Seeing the ragged old man working about the jail, the lieutenant stops to talk with him. The priest claims to be a vagrant who has no home of his own. The lieutenant feels sorry for the old fellow, releases him, and gives him a present of five pesos. The priest leaves town and starts out across the country to find a place of temporary safety. After traveling for some time, he meets an Indian woman who can speak only a few words of Spanish. She manages to make him understand that something is wrong with her child. He goes with her and finds that the baby has been shot; his immediate guess is that the American bandit had done the deed.

After performing rites over the child, the priest continues his flight. He eventually makes his way into the next state, where he is given sanctuary by a German plantation owner. After resting a few days, he plans to go to a city and present his problems to his bishop. Before he can leave, however, he is found by the mestizo, who says that the American bandit, a Catholic, is dying and needs the priest. The priest answers the call, although he is sure he is being led into a trap. The bandit is really dying, but he lay in the state from which the priest had just escaped. Police are with him, waiting for the priest’s appearance.

Immediately after the bandit’s death, the police close in and capture the priest. Taken back to the capital of the state and tried for treason, he is found guilty and sentenced to be shot. The lieutenant of police, who feels somewhat sorry for the old priest, tries to persuade the renegade Father José to hear the priest’s last confession, but Father José, who fears the authorities, refuses. The priest is led out and shot without the benefit of the Church’s grace. Nevertheless, the lieutenant of police has not succeeded in removing the Church’s influence; on the evening of the day on which the priest died, another priest secretly makes his way into the town where the execution had taken place.

Bibliography

Allott, Kenneth, and Miriam Farris. The Art of Graham Greene. New York: Russell, 1963. An invaluable study of Greene as an author whose obsessions shaped the themes and characters of his fiction. Such obsessive themes as betrayal, the fear of failure, and the hunted man illuminate Allot and Farris’s reading of The Power and the Glory.

Bergonzi, Bernard. A Study in Greene: Graham Greene and the Art of the Novel. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Bergonzi examines Greene’s novels, analyzing their language, structure, and recurring motifs. Argues that Greene’s earliest work was his best, Brighton Rock was his masterpiece, and his novels published after the 1950’s showed a marked decline in his abilities. Chapter 5 includes a discussion of The Power and the Glory.

Bosco, Mark. Graham Greene’s Catholic Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Focuses on the elements of Catholic doctrine in Greene’s novels. Bosco contradicts many critics, who maintain these elements are present in Greene’s early novels only, demonstrating how the writer’s religious faith is a pervasive aspect in all of his work.

DeVitis, A. A. Graham Greene. Boston: Twayne, 1986. A fine introductory study of Greene’s major novels with a sensitive reading of Greene’s Catholicism and how it influences his fiction. More than a dozen pages are dedicated to The Power and the Glory.

Kelly, Richard. Graham Greene. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1984. Provides a brief biography of the author, followed by analyses of his novels, thrillers, short fiction, and plays. Extends one critic’s argument that Greene’s creativity was obsessional, examining Greene’s later writings.

Land, Stephen K. The Human Imperative: A Study of the Novels of Graham Greene. New York: AMS Press, 2008. A chronological consideration of all of Greene’s work, demonstrating the common themes and character types in his novels and other fiction. Charts Greene’s development as a writer.

Roston, Murray. Graham Greene’s Narrative Strategies: A Study of the Major Novels. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Roston focuses on seven novels, including The Power and the Glory, to describe the narrative strategies Greene uses to deflect readers’ hostility toward his advocacy of Catholicism and to create heroic characters at a time when the traditional hero was no longer a credible protagonist.

Sherry, Norman. The Life of Graham Greene. 3 vols. New York: Viking Press, 1989-2004. This biography is a comprehensive and authoritative account of Greene’s life, written with complete access to his papers and the full cooperation of family, friends, and the novelist himself. Includes a generous collection of photographs, a bibliography, and an index.

Zabel, Morton Dauwen. “Graham Greene: The Best and the Worst.” In Craft and Character in Modern Fiction. New York: Viking Press, 1957. Despite the many volumes of critical material on Greene, this piece still ranks at the top for its perceptive critical insights into Greene’s fictional world.