Two great authors: John Bunyan and Grahame Greene

Analyse the literary techniques used by John Bunyan and Graham Greene in the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ and ‘The Power and The Glory’, that present and question the roles of Christians in Society.

 Christian literature, as a genre, has fallen out of favour in recent years, perhaps due to a shift towards a more secular culture and governing. However, from Medieval England up to the nineteenth century, a church-dominated education system ensured Christian Literature was both widely read and written. Defining the genre are certain paradigm sets, known as dominant themes notably fortitude, original sin and human mortality: these themes reoccur to a differing extent throughout the novels ‘The Pilgrims Progress’ and ‘The Power and the Glory’. It is no coincidence that whilst contributing to verisimilitude or ‘the appearance of truth’ in the Christian Literature genre, both of these books have been considered to provide insight into the meaning of human existence, much like the Christian bible. Their central and unifying plot revolves around ‘the quest for salvation’.

 John Bunyan was a Baptist preacher and even spent time in prison for preaching his beliefs. His writing is a reflection of a turbulent period of time for culture and religion as different sects of the Church of England were starting to break away. The Pilgrim’s Progress by design and idiom underpins the notion of verisimilitude since it is Bunyan’s aim to propagate his ‘puritan’ beliefs and repudiate any dissension from them.

‘… I did not understand

That I should make a little book

…before I was aware, I this begun’

 From the outset he suggests that divine powers caused him to right it, implying an absolute God- inspired truth. He is specific and imperative, his religious message is one of strict Christian ‘purity’ and he delivers it emotively.

Graham Greene’s novel is not a religious manual, instead his writing is often assumed to have a political agenda. He was an English Catholic convert who travelled South America and was openly critical of the political regime there, several of his other written works feature Latin America. ‘The Power and the Glory’ typically reflects the struggle of religion in an oppressive regime as seen by Greene:

‘‘The other,’ the leuitenant said, ‘is a Priest’. He raised his

voice: ‘you know what this means- a traitor to the republic.’

‘…everything will be fine, when they[the priests] are dead’’

Although he explores the notions of fortitude, original sin and human mortality through his protagonist, the ‘Whisky Priest’, he is preoccupied with the dialectic conflict between religion and the state. At no point is the reader allowed to form a positive opinion of the government or police in El Salvador, Greene’s values are too dominant to ignor, his description too realistic to dismiss as fantasy.

             Both authors have chosen the format of a novel to covey their ideas: therefore conditioning the reader at first instance into accepting the piece as a whole due to its aesthetic unity. However, form is the only conventional structural technique they share. Bunyan chooses a ‘dream’ framework, evident from the sub-tittle: ‘In the similitude of a dream’. Psychoanalytical critic Frank Kermode said of dreams in literature: ‘they serve to muddle routine readings, to confound explanation and expectation and to make necessary the intrinsic plurality of a text’. This structure legitimises, Bunyan’s abstract presentation of ideas. Its plural aspect allows reader to negotiate a highly personalised reading of the text; this technique is a way of tailoring the image of truth, which is the dominant reading, to each individual reader. However Kermode’s argument is undermined by the popular notion that ‘dreams are more ‘real’ than reality’, Bunyan may have been creating a setting that is not confused by the contradiction of a ‘reality’ framework, in a dream a consistent internal surrounding can be manufactured. The dream framework does complicate the narration:

‘Chr. Then Christian and Faithful told him of all things that had happened to them’

It is clear that ‘Chr.’ Indicates that Christian is speaking, yet he refers to himself in the third person: ‘Then Christian’. It is Bunyan’s dream and he narrates in the first person: ‘Then the man looked into his book’ but Christian and Bunyan seem to merge during the main body of the text and it is debatable as to who is truly narrating. Bunyan has derived a sense of verisimilitude from the audiences’ ‘bond’ with the protagonist’s views: who they are conditioned to respect as an iconic Christian.

            Graham Greene uses a third person narrative. His narrative tone is far more detached than Bunyan’s highly personal narration. Greene uses the tactic of a seemingly non-biased narrator who merely tells events as they are: ‘then the Priest stepped out’. The narrator is presented as all knowing, with insight into the character’s inner feelings: ‘A faint feeling of rebellion stirred in Mr Tench’s heart’. There is a lack of noticeable characterisation of the narrator. However, this leaves the audience in a somewhat vulnerable position- luring them to regard assumed truths and values within the novel as absolute. The narrator is generally reliable since there is no evidence he with hold information, however there is no contrast to narrative voice except direct speech and this does not help the reader to form judgements of the narrator. 

‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ is told allegorically, the protagonist embarks on a ‘quest for celestial city’, meeting several characters along the way. The characters are symbolic representations of abstract qualities: the character named ‘Faithful’ symbolises the notion of faithfulness. The characters are iconic because their behaviour is a personification of the quality they are named after. Bunyan tactfully uses juxtapostioning with certain characters with opposite qualities: ‘Obstinate’ and ‘Pliable’ are placed together to emphasise their representative quality.  Bunyan uses representation as a channel for his intended meaning to reach his audience, by using epithets as his channel; his message is virtually unquestionable since it denies the reader any scope for personal reflection on the characters in the text. Thus ‘the Pilgrim’s Progress’ has been structured with timelessly universal qualities: the characters are not to be interpreted in the light of social, economic or political circumstance but as accepted truths. Further evidence for this is littered throughout the novel: ‘wouldest thou see a truth within a Fable?’ when Bunyan uses a paradigm set designed to create an association between his own work and ‘truth’. Greene’s innocent, all-knowing narrative alleviates the need for him to create this association for his message to be accepted.

‘The Power and the Glory’ has a linear structure and follows the structural conventions of a novel. A Marxist critic could accuse Graham Greene of structuring his novel to conform to bourgeois expectations, he is writing to the class which we presume his is born of. Graham Greene uses a conventional channel for his message, he is writing in a different time period from Bunyan, perhaps one in which the ideology conditions into pleasing those who are going to pay to read their novel. Greene’s use of an accepted structure, with which the readers can identify, gives his content an anchor of credibility. His intention is to create controversy over his ideas and revelations rather than to risk criticism focusing on the way he delivers his message.

As mentioned above, Bunyan names his characters in order to represent, symbolically; abstract qualities. Greene does not use a pattern of naming in such an apparent way yet names are clearly used as a linguistic tool. A variety of titles are employed: surnames such as ‘Mr Tench’ and ‘Miss Lehr’ are used to describe less important, older characters, it signifies respect. Nationalities are used to describe ‘the American’ and ‘an Indian’, reinforcing their cultural isolation. Most commonly, however, characters are named by their occupation: ‘Chief of Police’, ‘the Lieutenant’, ‘the Priest’, ‘the dentist’ and ‘the beggar’. The occupational titles are acquired during earthly existence; this places a focus on what someone is, or what they have done. The stigma of ‘sin’ is enforced seamlessly by Greene as a degradation of title: ‘the Whisky Priest’. This notion is then alluded to every time a character with the attached stigma is mentioned.

            Both authors were trying to motivate their readers, not merely to impress or inform them. The texts must be constructed to offer meaning and motivation to even the most limited of readers. John Bunyan uses capitalisation of important words in order to emphasise their individual importance:

‘His house is as empty of Religion, as the white of an Egg is of Savour’

This acts as a visual guide to his readers. Bunyan also relies on the preposition of words to guide the reader:

‘Then I am in this man, greatly deceived.’

The word that gives this sentence anchorage is ‘deceived’, and Bunyan tactfully places it at the end of the line in order to draw attention to it. However, there are critics, such as Tamsin Spargo who insist Bunyan intended for his works to ‘be delivered orally to the illiterate masses’. This suggests that Bunyan intended to rely on intonation rather than syntactical emphasis.

            Graham Greene, contrasting Bunyan, masterfully uses syntax to convey meaning of individual phrases as well as to set the tone of certain passages. At points of tension or excitement, the sentences are short and direct:

‘You know how often. It doesn’t mean much. I thought I’d stay till next month, say, and see if things get better. Then- oh you don’t know.’

Whereas, at the beginning of several chapters when narrative explanation or description is required, the sentences become long and complex:

‘One rose and flapped across the town: over the tiny plazza over the bust of an ex-president, ex-general, ex-human being, over the two stalls which sold mineral water, towards the river and the sea’.

He uses syntax as a tool to deliver his message in a lively and interesting way; he has had to make a greater effort to do this than Bunyan because he is competing not only with classical writers like Bunyan but with other contemporary writers too. Greene does not have the luxury afforded to Bunyan of writing without precedent; Greene had to construct his medium with an awareness of the other Christian literature before him.

            Language is the building block of meaning, each word is a symbol for a concept, object or phenomena. Some of Bunyan’s meaning is lost since his language is archaic to modern readers. Terms such as ‘a sorry scrub’ and descriptions like ‘the water rose amain’ are simply not in use any more because they have been made redundant by modern neologisms or they refer to incidents that did not hold any relevance over time. Bunyan’s language is, at times, criticised as being colloquial and having a tendency to circumlocution. There was certainly no agreed Standard English or standard writing conventions in the 1600’s. It has been asserted that he wrote simply as he heard language being used, this would explain his phonetic and idiosyncratic spelling: ‘perswaded’ (p.22), ‘hazzards’(p.27), ‘shew’(p.85). Bunyan’s writing is typified by its omission of speech marks, apostrophes for possession and exclamation marks. It highlights difficulties of conveying meaning when there are no pre-agreed signals.

Greene’s narrative language is far more formal and at times it is elevated far above spoken use: ‘ A delusive promise of peace tempted him’. Elevated language associated with the ruling class, it has been used to exclude the uneducated working classes. From a Marxist perspective this is a textual leakage of Greene’s prejudice towards assuming ruling class intellectual and moral superiority. From a psychoanalytical perspective, this could be another device used to condition the reader into accepting the narration as a higher authority. However, Greene’s narrative language is polarised against the naturalistic dialogue of his characters:

‘You can do anything’, the jefe said, ‘anything’

‘He leaves it to us?’

‘On conditions,’ he winced

‘What are they?’

‘He’ll hold you responsible-if-not caught before- rains.’

Plain language and the use of dashes give an almost improvised tone, this reinforces verisimilitude within the novel because spontaneity is associated with truth and innocence, polarised from the association between pre-meditation and criminal intent. Further to this, Greene uses adjectives: ‘little astute eyes’, ‘proper picture’, ‘obscure and intricate game’ to define mood and appearance, much as a film maker would add brief, tiny details to add realism to the main narrative. By adding realism, Greene attempts to move his work away from ‘fiction’ and creates a false sense of worldly attributes within the novel.

Bunyan uses repetition of words and ideas, as well as lists of synonymous objects throughout his novel:

‘Religion hath no place in his heart, or house, or conversation; all he hath lieth in his tongue and his Religion is to make a noise therewith.’

His repetition forces the reader to identify with the equivalent connotations of the words, in the hope that each word used will reform and reshape the overall connotation that is unachievable by a single word.

            In place of repetition, a technique that has come to be criticised as messy and platitudinous, Graham Greene favours the use of oxymorons: ‘facetious brightness’; ‘repulsive humility’. Here dialectical connotations negotiate in order to find a meaning entirely different from that denoted by the words individually.

In a sense ‘The Power and The Glory’ is built around contemporary idioms, it cannot be attributed with the same universality as ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’. Greene employs other types of figurative language:

‘A woman kissed the Priest’s hand: it was odd to be wanted again: not to feel himself the carrier of death.’

Metaphors are used to normalise the concepts Greene raises. They are used as a method to install empathy into the audience; to draw them into the mindset of a character or place by comparing the situation or emotion with more accepted notions. Often nature is used in metaphors or similes: ‘pride wavered in his voice like a plant with shallow roots’ because it is the least contested of all subjects, since most people have some value placed in a ‘higher order’ or ‘natural law’. In the genre of Christian writing, where nature falls short of an appropriate comparison, the notions of fortitude and original sin are means for the Christian justification of an antithetical portrayal of the nature of religion and the justification for why ‘natural law’ is unfair.

The Pilgrim’s Progress features the notion that heaven is an antithesis of earthly existence. If Bunyan’s text is to be accepted, by a ‘Christian’ audience, whom are likely to adhere to the belief that heaven is perfect and pure, then the notion of original sin is necessary in order to explain any aspect of earth that is good but ‘better’ in heaven: ‘thou it tastes sweet in the valley, it will be sweeter upon deliverance to the celestial place’. Bunyan’s literary techniques are at times inconsistent, his repetitive structure and confused preposition of words shows how he struggled to manipulate his medium in order to convey a truly ‘holy’ message. His social status, a rebellious preacher, allowed him to exploit his autonomous individualised expression and this has won his work admiration from modern readers. Antithesis is the predominant literary technique in ‘The Power and The Glory’ by the opposition of the state and the church. The notion of original sin is manifest within the protagonist, who is imperfect largely due to his alcoholism: he is the ‘Whisky Priest’. He is a representation of the Church, as opposed to the Lieutenant, who is a representation of the state. The notion of original sin here is used to justify the Priest’s flaws as innately ‘human’, whilst leaving the church as an unflawed opposite to the state. The state, to Greene, was the cause of trouble in South America, as he saw it. His book is a form of Christian writing but also a political cry for change and this is reflect in his rationalised, earthy tone and the sophisticated adherence to conventional structure.

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