Structure, Imagery and Theme in 'The Power and the Glory'

Abstract

In the winter of 1937-38 Graham Greene went to Mexico to write a book about the religious persecution there, notably in the provinces where Catholicism had been outlawed. The resultant report, 'The Lawless Roads' (1939), as it came to be called, is a first-hand account of the general political, social and religious situation - all of which were argued out again in terms of personality in his novel 'The Power and the Glory' (1940). The writer was not concerned with the last survivals of Spanish colonialism, (despite the setting up of the republic in 1824), nor yet with the separation by Juarez of Church from the State, which act still left the Church with large landholdings. We are told nothing by Greene of Diaz (1872-1911), who was progressive but despotic, nor of the period of revolution and consequent destruction (1911-1921). The novel's references to Obregon, President from 1917 to 1920, do not make clear the latter's total welfare programme, the redistribution of land to the villagers, or the subsequent systematic harassment of the Roman Catholic clergy who were believed to be against the reforms.