INTENTIONAL
Given Greene’s demonstrated ability at writing more believable characters, the inescapable likelihood is that he must have intended to present the character of Sarah as a type, not a realistic person. She’s a caricature of extreme conversion: that of the sinner to saint.
Greene hints that he’s not going to give Sarah a realistic depiction. Although he’s rich in details about other characters (Henry’s near-sightedness, Savage’s tie, Smythe’s face), Bendrix claims to be unable to describe Sarah (p. 18):
I do not want any other woman substituted for Sarah, I want the reader to see the one broad forehead and bold moth, the conformation of the skull, but all I can convey is the indeterminate figure….
Other than telling us that she’s beautiful (p. 25), Greene’s physical description of Sarah is about as sketchy as anything this side of Beckett’s description of Godot.
So what was Greene up to?
One thing that I’m convinced he was not attempting in TEOTA was a defense of Christianity or, more specifically, Catholicism. If that were his purpose, he’d have used an approach closer to the tragically flawed but heroic whiskey priest in The Power and the Glory. Or even, perhaps, his Monsignor Quixote. (According to Wikipedia, MQ was made into a TV movie, starring Alec Guiness and Leo McKern. If you can think of a better pair of actors for Father Quixote and the communist mayor, Sancho, I’d love to hear of it.) An even more effective defense of the faith appears in A. J. Cronin’s The Keys of the Kingdom. (Greene could have done it better, but then it might not be so lovable a book.)
APOLOGIA
Rather than a defense of Christianity, I read TEOTA as Greene’s apologia for his behavior in the affair.
He has Bendrix describe his negatives at so many places throughout the book as to make a listing superfluous. The picture Greene paints of Bendrix is an insecure, self-centered bully. He bullies (teases, picks on, etc.) every major character: Sarah, Henry, Parkis – he even tries with God. (“I hate You, God. I hate You as though You existed.” P. 191), and bullies Sarah post mortem, persuading Henry to deny her the funeral she’d wanted. Mea culpa!
But the book is more than just Greene’s confession: it’s a personal apology and admission to his former lover that he was in the wrong, but that he’s grown through the experience. After all, Greene dedicated the book to “c”: that’s got to be his real-life Sarah, Lady Catherine Walston.
TWO-DIMENSIONAL TREATMENT
Given that the book is a personal apology, did Greene need to portray Sarah in such a limited, two-dimensional way? I think, largely, he did.
To paint Sarah in realistic terms, to really flesh her out as a person, Greene would have had to describe at least some warts. (By the early 20th century, “realism” had come to be synonymous with gritty, dirty.) But, for a couple of reasons, that would not do for Greene’s purpose in a personal apology. First, it’s chiaroscuro, allowing Greene to highlight the contrast between the light of Sarah’s love and the darkness of Bendrix’s selfishness. Second, and more importantly, Greene simply could not make his apology in a form that appeared to be continuing an argument, which is how any negative description of the Sarah character would tend to appear. Accordingly (so far as I can recall), the only negatives about Sarah in the book are recounting of her lies and promiscuity, issues that could hardly be avoided in a book about her ending the affair.
DAMN DIARY AND SLIPSHOD SAINTHOOD
Buy why stoop to the diary, and did he have to go as far as to include the miracles to suggest sainthood?
As to the diary, we discussed the need for some device to communicate to Bendrix his misperception of Sarah’s feelings and motives. An intercepted letter, an overheard conversation, confession to a friend who repeated the statement to Bendrix all would have served as possible alternatives to the diary.
I suppose that the diary was about as good a way as any to introduce the facts of Sarah’s love, and her internal struggle with God. But why present it in such an annoyingly vapid and long-winded way? Again, I’m inclined to think that Greene had a purpose. Painting Sarah, through her diary, as emotionally simple (almost a teenager --one probably would find more emotional and intellectual depth in Miss Piggy’s diary!) introduces a vulnerability in Sarah. (“… is there nobody who will love a bitch and a fake?” p. 95).
Sarah’s vulnerability contrasts nicely with Bendrix’s sophistication (he may be immature, and in some ways emotionally stunted, but he’s sophisticated). This emphasizes again his responsibility for the sad end of the affair.
But the miracles and the sainthood? This I find the most difficult choice to explain. I think he went too far in contrasting Sarah with himself (and with each of the main characters).
On the other hand, Greene clearly wanted to make a point about sainthood, which is emphasized when he has Bendrix say, “… if even you – with your lusts and your adulteries and the timid lies you used to tell – can change like this, we could all be saints by leaping as you leapt … if you are a saint, it’s not so difficult to be a saint.”
Perhaps the whole miracles/sainthood shtick was another stroke in Greene’s long-running love-hate relationship with the Catholic church. Sarah was not a very good Catholic, if she was one at all ( I’m not convinced that she’d accepted any recognizable church). Greene’s point here may have been that she could become a saint by accepting God, without fully adopting a church.
Admittedly, one might say to all this, “If the lawyer thinks that, the lawyer is a ass – a idiot!”
However, it helps reconcile me to the book, which I’d liked up until the diary.
That, anyway, is my explanation of Greene’s treatment of Sarah. I’d be interested in other views.
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