Proceedings of GREAT Day
Volume 2010 Article 24
2011 Altering Environments Affect the Psychological State Caitlin Hesketh SUNY Geneseo
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Recommended Citation Hesketh, Caitlin (2011) "Altering Environments Affect the Psychological State," Proceedings of GREAT Day: Vol. 2010 , Article 24. Available at: https://knightscholar.geneseo.edu/proceedings-of-great-day/vol2010/iss1/24
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Altering Environments Affect the Psychological State
Submitted by: Caitlin Hesketh
During the 1950s, the decade subsequent to the At this point in the novel Graham does publishing of Eric Ambler’s Journey into Fear, not see the necessity of taking action to save his Graham Greene’s, The Ministry of Fear, and life. He cannot comprehend how closely he is Henry Green’s, Back, a new subfield of tied to the inner workings of the war and states: Psychology was established: Environmental Nonsense, Kopeikin! You must be out of Psychology. This subfield “studies the your senses. What conceivable reason relationship between environments and human could anyone have for wanting to kill behavior and how they affect one another” me? I’m the most harmless man alive. (Conaway). These characters’ actions, thoughts, (Ambler, 42) and beliefs undergo alteration due to the It is clear at this point in the novel that physical or emotional setting that they are in. In Graham’s psychological environment is one of Journey, Graham’s ability to take action indifference and detachment from the outside increases only after he transfers settings. world. He does not comprehend that his work Through relocation, Ministry's Arthur Rowe supplies a portion of the arms used to fight the finds both his psychology and ability for war; ultimately endorsing this fighting and romantic engagement altered. Conversely, profoundly affecting numerous people. Because Charley, Back's returning World War II veteran, neither Graham’s physical or emotional remains in a single setting altered by his lover's environment has been affected by the war absence. before this time, he cannot act in any other Ambler’s protagonist, Graham, is an fashion. employee for an armaments company during Graham’s environment continues to World War II. Because of his unique blend of affect his behavior after he has boarded the boat technical and interpersonal abilities, Graham that will return him home. Midway though this travels to various countries as a representative. journey home the boat docks in Greece where While abroad, Graham becomes the target of Graham receives word that there is a new Romanian terrorists in a plot to prevent Turkey passenger onboard. Graham finds that the man from acquiring weaponry. This character’s who has boarded the ship, Banant, is the inability to take action is prevalent from the assassin who attempted to murder him in beginning of the novel when he experiences his Turkey. The introduction of this character first brush with death. After a night of within the confined boat setting alters Graham’s entertainment with the company’s Turkish emotional environment. He transitions from a representative, Kopeikin, Graham returns to his world of detachment to a world of inescapable hotel room and is attacked by a man waiting in paranoia. The greatest marker of this change in the shadows. When Graham is grazed by the temperament is a memory of a past feeling, intruder’s bullet, he turns to Kopeikin for which Graham recalls as a, “curious but vaguely assistance. Kopeikin suggests that Graham familiar feeling… associated with the smell of change his plans for travel back to England and antiseptics and the singing of a kettle” (Ambler, explains the severity of the situation. 121). Graham recounts a time when an experiment at work went wrong and a coworker 176
Published by KnightScholar, 2011 1 Proceedings of GREAT Day, Vol. 2010 [2011], Art. 24 was severely injured. The same disturbing Graham has undergone are positive and that he feeling that he associates with this past incident will continue to move forward with his newly returns to him. acquired psyche. Due to the addition of Banat to the boat, In the novel The Ministry of Fear, Graham is forced out of his original emotional Graham Greene’s protagonist Arthur Rowe can environment and must take action in order to be analyzed through the lens of psycho save his own life. In an attempt to do this geography because he is greatly affected by Graham seeks to procure a revolver after his is each geographical environment that he is in. stolen out of his quarters. He enlists the help of Psycho geography is, "The study of specific his love interest on the boat, Josette. The two effects of the geographical environment, conspirators plot to steal from Jose, Josette’s consciously organized or not, on the emotions husband. In this portion of the text the revolver and behavior of individuals” (Blissett, Home). is a larger metaphor for Graham’s continued Rowe’s emotions and behaviors differ inability to take action into his own hands. depending on whether he is in an urban setting Although his behavior is changing due to the during World War II, or in a mental resort shift in his emotional environment, he fails at secluded from the city and the events of the war. obtaining a revolver in this instance, as well as At the commencement of the novel in a second attempt to steal Banant’s weapon. Rowe is depicted as both a victim and an This suggests that Graham’s physical aggressor. He has committed the crime of environment must also change in order for him murder against his wife and continuously asserts to be able to take action. Graham’s psychology this fact with casual statements such as, will not undergo a reformation until he fulfilled “Perhaps, I ought to tell you that I am a murder his obsession with finding a revolver and also myself” (Greene, 26). It is clear that Rowe sees physically removed himself from the boat. himself an aggressor; however, he is also a The resolution of the novel includes victim of circumstance. The crime that he is Graham shifting from his paranoid emotional tried for is ruled a “mercy killing” due to his environment to a resolute one. After finding his wife’s poor health and his inability to watch her ally on the boat dead, Graham begins to take suffer. (Greene, 27). Rowe is also a victim of risks by actively planning his escape from his his surroundings. Although the urban setting enemies. His first action is to finally acquire a that he lives in is not responsible for his actions revolver from a Frenchman on board. After against his wife, it shapes how Rowe views Graham exits the boat he is no longer confined himself and how he behaves after the crime is or paranoid, but realizes that in order to survive committed. Rowe begins to characterize the he must change the way that he thinks and city that he lives in as an enemy and as a result behaves. While riding in a vehicle with his he, “grows into criminality like a habit of captors Graham seizes an opportune moment to thought” (Greene, 31). To Rowe the city is a save his life. secret world and he feels as if he is exiled from In that second Graham acted… A sudden the places that he once frequented before the blind fury seized him… Before he knew murder. Rowe sees himself as a murderer what he was doing, he had pulled out because he has committed the crime and also Mathis’s revolver and fired it full in because everywhere he turns, people and places Banant’s face. (Ambler, 261) remind him of the social ramifications of his act. The change in Graham’s physical and emotional These feelings of isolation inflict a want in environments is so great that he is able to Rowe to return to his childhood environment transition from a disconnected inability to act, to where he was cared for and still had the the ability to take human lives. This new found potential to love and be loved. behavior continues to present itself in Graham’s At the climax of the novel Rowe loses character even after he is removed from the his memory due to a bomb planted by a ministry stimulus that precipitated it. At the close of the working for the axis powers. His loss of novel there is a sense that the alterations that memory evokes a change in his emotional 177 https://knightscholar.geneseo.edu/proceedings-of-great-day/vol2010/iss1/24 2 Hesketh: Altering Environments Affect the Psychological State environment as well as in his physical setting. because he is not able to drastically shift Rowe survives the bomb’s blast and wakes up to physical environments like the characters find himself stationed in a “resort” filled with Graham and Rowe. Before the war Charley is patients who are battling war related traumas. depicted as out of touch and in a, “usual state of In this setting, Rowe is able to return to a not knowing” (Green, 5). He is romantically pseudo childhood because he is cared for by Dr. involved with a woman named Rose and Forester and his staff, and also because he no continues to see her even after she marries longer remembers his past. During his time as another man and conceives a child. Charley Richard Digby, Rowe does not carry the guilt does not appear affected by Rose’s inability to that he had before his memory loss and he is not commit or accurately express her feelings to subjected to the wartime tragedies unfolding. him. Charley obsesses over this female, despite The new environment that Rowe is in allows her ineptitude. While inhabiting his prewar him to be, “fresh,” and not “tired like the rest of setting, Charley is incapable of obtaining what us everywhere” (Greene, 101). By removing he wants or desires because of his inability to these perpetual feelings of remorse and accept reality. separation from Rowe’s characterization, In the environment that Charley enters Greene allows Rowe the capability to be upon his return from France, his inability to romantically involved with his visitor Anna. accept reality is heightened. Before leaving Before the memory loss Anna and Rowe have home Charley is characterized as mentally out an attraction that cannot be acted on due to of touch and through his experiences in the Rowe’s mental inability to pull himself out of army his issue manifests itself physically. The his deep set feelings of pity for everyone that he loss of a limb forces him to navigate his “new comes into contact with. By changing his environment” while deficient in both body and emotional environment Rowe becomes “as he mind. Charley is unable to successfully accept should have always been” (Greene, 104). romantic involvement with another woman Before Rowe is removed from his original upon returning home because his post traumatic physical and emotional setting he sees himself stress, combined with his preexisting personality inhabiting the world of a murderer. After he is traits, causes him confusion. Upon meeting moved to a stress free emotional and physical Nancy, Rose’s half sister, he cannot accept that environment, Rowe’s world becomes idealized. she is not Rose herself. Charley’s obsession The changes that he undergoes suggest that, like with his past love is heightened to the point of Graham, he will move forward in his newfound delusion. This enigma consumes him and he is state of mind and obtain all that he initially rendered incapable of performing his work wishes for. properly and sleeping. Eventually, due to the The protagonist Charley in Henry maternal love and care that Nancy provides, Green’s Back can be analyzed through the lens Charley is able to delineate between Rose and of ecological psychology because the reader Nancy and, “all of a sudden, or so he thought, observes Charley in his “ordinary surroundings” she (Rose) was dead to him at last” (Green, where he lives and works (Conaway). Unlike 122). At the point when Charley comes to this Graham and Rowe, Charley is depicted only in realization, it appears that he has begun to this hometown setting; however, because he is a recuperate and accept his new psychological returning World War II veteran, Charley has environment while existing within his old many flashbacks to his prewar self and the physical one. emotional setting that he once associated with After Nancy moves into the home of home. Through the flashbacks that Charley Charley’s old love, he begins to have trouble experiences, it can be concluded that Charley’s distinguishing between both women again. His behavior is not altered by his return to a fantasy that Nancy is Rose becomes a concrete contorted home life; instead, his original idea as Nancy begins to fill Rose’s place by behavior is merely amplified. Charley is not taking care of her half sister’s immediate family. able to experience a psychological change Reality is blurred for Charley but he accepts 178
Published by KnightScholar, 2011 3 Proceedings of GREAT Day, Vol. 2010 [2011], Art. 24 Nancy’s marriage proposal because he has Moment; Green's Back and Bacon's developed a reliance on her to simultaneously Three Studies for Figures at the Base of be like and unlike Rose. His reliance allows a Crucifixion." Mosaic 23.3 (1990): him to function in his previous emotional 113- 124. Print. environment while physically being in a world Green, Henry. Back (British Literature). First that looks familiar, but is a world where Rose Dalkey ed. Unknown: Dalkey Archive does not exist. Essentially, Charley is unable to Pr, 2009. Print. change his behavior or thoughts because he does Greene, Graham. "At Home." Graham Greene: not change physical environments and refuses to Collected Essays. New York: Viking change emotional environments. In the end, Press, 1983. 447-451. Print. Charley’s relationship with Nancy thrives Greene, Graham. The Ministry of Fear: An because of this predicament and not despite of Entertainment (Penguin Classics). his psychological state. At the termination of London: Penguin Classics, 2005. Print. the novel, the suggestion for Charley’s future is Stokes, Phil. "World War 2 Important Dates." murkier than for Graham and Rowe. Unlike Second World War. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Ambler’s and Greene’s protagonists, Charley Dec. 2009. does not move forward with his life but chooses
References
Ambler, Eric. Journey into Fear. 1940. Reprint. New York: Vintage, 2002. Print. Blissett, Luther, and Stewart Home. "Psychogeographical - Discussion and Encyclopedia Article. Who is Psychogeographical? What is Psychogeographical? Where is Psychogeographical? Definition of Psychogeographical. Meaning of Psychogeographical.." Welcome to Knowledgerush. Knowledgerush, n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2009.