The Power and the Glory Study Guide

Greene was born into a wealthy and influential family. His father was a headmaster at the Berkhamsted boarding school, and his mother was a cousin of author Robert Louis Stevenson. Greene had a difficult upbringing, however, because he suffered from severe depression and attempted suicide several times before the age of 16. Although he managed to get his depression under control, it stayed with him during his college years at Oxford, where he obtained a degree in history. Greene worked as a journalist for a short time before going on to write his first novel, The Man Within, in 1929. The Man Within was a success and allowed Greene to become a full-time novelist. Greene was a prolific writer throughout his lifetime, rarely letting more than two years go by without publishing a new novel. As such, his body of work is immense and includes such classics as The Power and the Glory (1940), The Third Man (1949), The End of the Affair (1951), The Quiet American (1955), and Our Man in Havana (1958). Greene remains one of the most celebrated English novelists of the 20th century. He is known for splitting his novels into two groups: entertainment and literary fiction. For Greene, books like Our Man in Havana would fall into the first category, while The Power and the Glory would fall into the second because it is more overtly philosophical.

The Power and the Glory takes place in Mexico during the rule of President Calles, who in 1926 outlawed the Catholic Church under a political ideology known as anti-clericalism. While some Mexican states cracked down on the Church harder than others, by and large it was difficult to practice Catholicism without fearing for one’s life. In particular, the state of Tabasco was dangerous because it was under the rule of dictator Tomás Garrido Canabal, who was known for his hatred of Catholicism and authoritarian policies. Though Canabal never appears in the novel, he is alluded to several times. In addition, the character of the lieutenant largely shares Canabal’s ideology and carries out atrocities in his name. Canabal had several stints as governor of Tabasco, with his last term ending in 1934, four years before anti-clericalism would end in Mexico. Graham traveled to Mexico in 1938, the last year when the Catholic Church was still outlawed. His experiences from his time there helped shape The Power and the Glory.

Religious themes feature prominently in many of Graham Greene’s novels and are most prevalent in The Power and the Glory. Other notable examples include Brighton Rock, The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair. In addition to Greene’s work, a litany of 20th-century British novels are closely intertwined with the Catholic faith, including the books of C. S. Lewis, Evelyn Waugh, J. R. R. Tolkien. Lewis is most famous for his series of children’s novels The Chronicles of Narnia, which largely function as fantastical Christian allegories. For his part, Tolkien, most known for The Lord of Rings, allowed his beliefs to influence his literary works, but less directly than Lewis. Meanwhile, Waugh, best-known for Brideshead Revisited, wrote about flawed Catholic characters, much like Greene. Coincidentally, Waugh and Greene went to college together.