Graham Greene has stated that he believes there to be an undercurrent of fantasy running through all of his work that has largely gone unnoticed by his critics. Within the context of any discussion on Greene can be found a starting point for an evaluation of his work in terms of the fantastic and fantasy. Eric S. Rabkin defines fantasy as the inverse of reality. In a fantasy world, the ground rules, expectations, and perspectives of everyday experience are reversed, or diametrically opposed, and the effect is a sense of hesitation and wonder. All of Greene's fiction describes worlds divided. He constructs borders that continuously separate people, places, situations, motivations, perspectives, objectives, and states of mind. Each side of the border describes a world that is the opposite of the other. The reality of one side is turned over on the other side, and life on the border is unpredictable and uncertain. The concept of alternate realities and other worlds which characterize fantasies, can be applied to all of Greene's works in general, and more specifically to a particular group of the fiction which exhibits a much higher degree of fantastic content.

Note: / Graham Greene’s first three novels are historical adventure stories. For example, the man within, published in 1929, is the story of a young man who betrays his fellow smugglers into the hands of the law. The examination of his fear because of his knowledge that they will be avenged, constitutes the main material of the book. The novels of Greene which appeared in the period 1932-1938, however, have a contemporary setting.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1991. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [209]-220).

Criticism of Graham Greene often centers around what has been termed Greene's "obsessions." Much has been made of his "formula" of the hunted man. The suggestion usually is that Greene's "obsessions" and his "formula" are a blemish in his work. Since Greene's artistry in other respects is seldom questioned, it would seem to me that there is an explanation of what seems to be a blemish. The word "obsession" itself suggests an unconscious activity, an unconscious urge. It occurred to me that the recurrence of Greene's themes, and his "formula" could be explained as an unconscious urge translated into symbols which reflect his basic concern. Drawing on Jung's theory of "the collective unconscious," and examining the theory of archetypal terminology in literary criticism as used by such literary critics as Northrop Frye, and Maud Bodkin -- in her Archetypal Patterns in Poetry -- I attempt to show that Greene's heroes are symbols in a mythic structure. This structure, with varying artistic differences, is what we see as Greene's individual novels and "entertainments." The novels and entertainments represent the fusion of Greene's literary artistry, his unconscious symbolism, and his conscious ordering of experience. Greene's heroes, his "archetypes," are recurrent images which evince his theme: that man can only be spiritually regenerated through experience. The word "recurrent" helps to explain the term "formula" which has been applied to Greene's plots. I attempt, too, to relate Greene's mythology to his “obsession." The reason that Greene chooses to call some of his work "entertainments," and others "novels," is that these represent two different literary modes which roughly parallel two general modes in art and literature: the comic and the tragic. The two entertainments examined here, The Confidential Agent and The Ministry of Fear, are discussed as representative of the comic mode, and the two serious novels, The Power and the Glory and The Heart of the Matter, are discussed as "tragic." The entertainments represent not comedy, but the integrative urge; that is, in comedy the tendency is to integrate the hero into his society. Both Arthur Rowe, the hero of the entertainment, The Ministry of Fear, and "D," the hero of the entertainment, The Confidential Agent, are reintegrated into their society through the love of women. On the other hand, the tendency in the tragic mode is to isolate the hero from his society. For example, the whiskey priest of The Power and the Glory, and Scobie of The Heart of the Matter, are in conflict with their society and are not physically reintegrated into it. I also examine Greene's use of melodrama. I attempt to expose the link between his use of melodrama and the comic mode. The necessity for a happy ending in the comic mode is mainly the reason that Greene uses melodramatic formulae in his plot resolution in the entertainments. It soon becomes clear that Greene's use of melodramatic formulae is ironic. This is so because of Greene's basic theme that one should be aware of both good and evil in human nature. His heroes and the minor characters are his medium of expression of this theme. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Beliefs a writer holds dear clearly influence the selection and treatment of ideas in his fiction: the purpose of this study is to examine the effect of Greene's religious sensibility on theme, mode, and characterization in a representative selection of his novels. From the late 30's to the early 50's, Greene's novels deal with dilemmas of faith that beset his Catholic characters; In The Power and the Glory (1940) he achieves startling and dramatic effects from the religious paradigms at the core of the novel. After the contentious success of the so-called 'Catholic' trilogy, The End of the Affair (1951) illustrates the difficulties to which an overzealous concern with specific issues of doctrine can lead when religious premises conflict directly with artistic requirements. From this point on, the perspective of Greene's novels is less and less specifically religious as he turns to considerations of a wider moral and social kind. In The Quiet American (1955), Greene explores the more existentialist questions of the freedom of choice and the responsibility of individual existence; however, his long preoccupation with Catholicism still intrudes in ways detrimental to the established development of the fiction. With the publication of The Comedians (1966) it is evident that Greene has moved even further away from the crises of faith that hounded his earlier characters as he focuses on an uncommitted anti-hero surrounded by an assortment of ideologies and forms of commitment. The development in Greene's religious vision has made him see and respond to the world of experience differently so that the themes and techniques of his fiction have changed accordingly. The broadening of his religious concerns has resulted in fiction that is less doctrinaire, less controversial, and perhaps more accessible. The negative presentation of the necessity of any form of faith through an anti-heroic central character has meant some loss of the intensity he could achieve as a novelist of urgent spiritual conflicts in his 'Catholic' period: it has also meant he could transcend specific issues of doctrine that could be so binding on his literary imagination, enabling him to create a more detached and witty representation of his broader religious ideas. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Texte remanié de: Dissertation--Kassel, 2004.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation. / Department of English

Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [73]-[79]).