University of Windsor Scholarship at UWindsor Electronic Theses and Dissertations Theses, Dissertations, and Major Papers 8-27-1964 Existentialism in Graham Greene's "The Name of Action", "The Heart of the Matter", "A Burnt-out Case": The theme of betrayal. Harold Barratt University of Windsor Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd Recommended Citation Barratt, Harold, "Existentialism in Graham Greene's "The Name of Action", "The Heart of the Matter", "A Burnt-out Case": The theme of betrayal." (1964). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 6342. https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/6342 This online database contains the full-text of PhD dissertations and Masters’ theses of University of Windsor students from 1954 forward. These documents are made available for personal study and research purposes only, in accordance with the Canadian Copyright Act and the Creative Commons license—CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivative Works). 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Existentialism in Graham Greene’s The Name of Action, The Heart of the Matter, A harnt-Out Case: The Theme of Betrayal A Thesis submitted to the Department of English of the University of Windsor in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by Harold Barratt, B.A, Faculty of Graduate Studies 1964 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: EC52522 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI UMI Microform EC52522 Copyright 2008 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 E. Eisenhower Parkway PC Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPROVED; flOQQ' Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. AHSTKÀCT In the novels of Graham Greene acts of betrayal appear with some frequency. Treachery and untrustworthi- ness are salient leitmotivs in ail of Greene*s novels and a study of his fiction indicates that the most significant form of betrayal is marital infidelity. The latter has received much critical comment but the causes and effects of marital infidelity in the novels have never ueen analysed or elucidated. This thesis examines the themes of marital iüfidelity, its causes and its effects in Greene*s early novel. The Name of Action, The Heart of the Gatter, which stands at midpoint in the author*s canon and tne latest novel, A Burnt—Gut Case. In eacii novel marital infidelity is discussed in terms of existential philosophy and the thesis purports to show that specific existential concepts can illumine and Indeed account for the presence of the marital infidelity theme. I have not confined my study to one system of existential thought, such as that of dartre, but have made use of concepts in the philosophy of Heidegger, Jaspers, Marcel and Kiekegaard. The thesis does not indicate to what extent Greene was influenced by contemporary existential thought. Instead it argues that his novels mirror such favourite existential themes as alienation, the absurd, nothingness, the instability ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of love and lack of communication between human beings, and that these themes are intimately linked with acts of betrayal in the novels. The study indicates that lack of communication can be regarded as the primary cause of betrayal and,indeed, Greene sees betrayal as the central evil wedded to human nature, the evil of original sin. XXX Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am deeply indebted to Mr, Eugene McNamara, Ph.D., director of this thesis, for his inspiring zeal while reading the proofs. His guidance and scholarship I have found invaluable. To Mr, Raymond Smith, Ph.D., and Mr. Ralph Nelson, Ph.D., I am grateful for their astute comments and suggestions made while reading the manuscript, I also wish to acknowledge valuable insights given me by Mr. Homer Plante, M.A., and the aid of Miss Sally Matheson who typed the manuscript. To the librarians of Wayne State University Library, I am indebted for helpful assistance with my research. To Deanna Derouin, whose patience and understanding made the completion of this study possible, I am grateful. iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ÏAuLE ÜF CONTENTS Chapter page Introduction ...... ................ 1 I liie Theme of detrayal in The Name of Action 10 Ii The Theme of Betrayal in The heart of the Matter .................. 23" 111 The Theme of Betrayal in A Burnt-Out Case 4.8' IV Conclusion ..... ..... 66' Selective Bibliography.......... 71 Vita A u c t o r i s .................. 76 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Introduction The critic Robert 0, Evans holds that Graham Greene has been moving in the direction of existentialism since the publication of Brighton Rock and that “The Quiet American appears to bring to fruition a philosophy that has tended to become more and more existentialist in nature.He suggests that “aesthetic existentialism" is the variety Greene seems most familiar with: “If God did not exist," wrote Dostoyevsky, "everything would be permissible." At exactly this juncture aesthetic existentialism, which seems to be the variety Greene is most familiar with,pparts company with Christian doctrine... That everything is by no means permissible, even without God, might be a roundabout way of stating the central doctrine of Greeners book.^ There are, of course, various schools of existentialism; but they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Indeed they have in common the one fact of the concrete existence of the human being, the one concept that existentialism is a philosophy of the concrete rather than the abstract. "Existentialism seeks to restore," says William Barrett, "a much more primitive sense of the word ♦philosophy*,,, namely, the ancient sense of philosophy as a concrete way of life, rather than an abstract set of propositions,"3 1 "Existentialism in Greene*s The Quiet American," Modern Fiction Studies, III (Autumn, Ï9S7), ~ 241. 2 Ibid. 3 Spiritual Problems in Contemporary Literature, ed. Stanley Hopper (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1952)7 p. 140. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 More pertinently— and this will be developed incidentally in the study of the novels— the existentialist, perhaps more than Kant, seems to be acutely aware that most situations "demand that someone be treated as a means or else there would be no ends for anyone."4 Now both existentialism and traditional philosophy lay claim to the title of philosophia perennis. The traditional system aruges that its claim is founded on the fact that philosophical knowledge is primarily universal knowledge. This, of course, Querry, in  Burnt-Out Case, would deny. The existentialist contends, as Joseph Mihalich has shown, that reality is revealed in the context of the individual’s subjective experiences-which for the individual are more significant and meaningful than transcendent abstractions. Existentialism bases its claim to the title of hilosophia perennis on the uniqueness and fmmediacy of everyman’s concrete existence and the individuality of the actions that contain it.5 While existentialism has been noticed in Greene’s fiction, no commentator has seen this philosophy as an explanation of the theme of betrayal. Perhaps Greene was not aware that he was dramatizing an existential dialectic. Whether this is the case or no, an existential dialectic is present in his fiction and this study purports to show that existentialism and its natural corollary, determinism and/or fatalism can be elucidated through the theme of betrayal as it manifests itself in the acts of marital infidelity. 4 Hazel E. Barnes, Humanistic Existentialism (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1959), p. Il2, 5 Existentialism and Thomism (New York: The Wisdom Library, I960), p. 68. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.