Power and the Glory

¶ … Power and the Glory": A Critical Analysis

Graham Greene's book "The Power and the Glory" is about a "whiskey priest" who is heavily and sinfully involved with alcohol but still has some of his faith left. The authorities in Mexico have banned the Catholic religion, and they have sentenced individuals such as the main character to death. Still, however, he stumbles his way across Mexico, in an attempt to escape persecution and death. As he works his way across the land, he spends much time on his inner feelings and thoughts, and much of the book is dealing with his personal reflections and how he feels about the things that have happened in his life. He has questions about himself, and he has questions about his faith, that he believes that the Catholic Church will overcome any obstacle it faces.

The book was written in 1940, and even though it has a few minor problems it is definitely a book worth reading. The priest in this story is a Catholic who is struggling not only with keeping away from the authorities who have sentenced him and his kind to die, but also struggling with his problems with alcohol and his lack of faith (Wu, 2002). The despair that the priest feels as the book continues is obvious and painful, and at times it seems that his despair will consume him and there will be nothing left for the authorities to do to him. He will already, essentially, be dead. He survives, however, as his faith in God and his humbleness toward others keeps him alive.

Many critics of the book think that it is boring and that the action is dull even though the priest is being chased. This is largely because mostly what the book deals with is the priest's psychological difficulties and problems of despair that come with running from the law and being involved with alcohol. The priest is having doubts about his faith and doubts about himself, and these are eating him up inside.

This is much more important to the understanding of the book than whether or not the chase of the priest by the authorities is exciting or interesting. The chase is not really what the book is about. It is about the inner strength of one man and how he tries to renew his faith in himself and his God.

Eventually he is captured, and even though he knows that many of his kind have been martyrs, he doesn't believe that he can be a martyr himself. He is too worried about his pride, and he is too worried about his final thoughts if he is killed. He believes that he will think only of fear and death, and not stop to think of God. The book shows the struggle of a good religion and a bad man who became involved with it (Wu, 2002).

The priest is not completely a bad individual, however. He is often cowardly and a given to many sinful ideas and ambitions, but this is only to show that he is human. As a contrast to these perceived character flaws, he remains a very humble person until the day of his death because he feels that he can never truly repent for some of the things he has done in his short and occasionally sinful life (Character, 2003).

He believes he cannot do enough penance to make the past wrongs acceptable, and occasionally he does very heroic things such as re-crossing the border into Mexico, where he knows that he is hunted, to hear the confession of a dying man. Even though he does these things, he does not realize how significant of an impact he has on the lives of other people, and therefore does not realize all of the good contributions he has made by being available to and touching the lives of others (Character, 2003).

The novel carries a somewhat gloomy mood, because the priest is always concerned about the people that he is fleeing from, and he is trying to flee from his inner demons as well, but they will not leave him. He drinks too much alcohol, and he has also committed adultery and fathered a child from it (Sauder, 2000).

He has faith, however, because he knows that the Catholic Church will go on even after his death, and that the Mexicans cannot stop that from happening. He realizes that one man is not strong enough to tear down the entire church, and so he goes to his death in a better frame of mind than many people would. He is, of course, correct. The Catholic Church does go on and a new priest arrives to take his place (Sauder, 2000).