the novelist as God, and God as the novelist

Critic David Lodge once said that in Greene's fiction, 'Catholicism is not a body of belief, but a system of concepts which Greene can arrange and dramatise in order to illustrate the weakness of human nature'. In 'The End of The Affair', where this idea is tested to its limits, Greene illustrates the struggle of the adulteress and her lover trying to come to terms with the fact that they may not ultimately be in control of their lives. Describing his novel as the fight between Man and his creator, Greene used Bendrix to illustrate a man 'who was driven and overwhelmed by the accumulation of natural coincidences, until he broke and began to accept the incredible - the possibility of a God'. Hereby presenting the subject of freewill, Greene depicted his characters already in total control of their lives, but, due to the 'natural coincidences' he describes, they soon began to realise how little of their prohibitive existence they had actually bargained for, and how inconsequenti!

I feel that the novelist mentioned in the title of this essay is not Graham Greene, but Mau

however, the first coming where Sarah describes herself addressing God. She states, 'So this is it. I begin to believe in you, and if I believe in you I shall hate you...You make me drive love out, and then you say there's no room for lust either. What do you expect me to do no, God? Where do I go from here?'. Here, confusion is particularly evident as Sarah is addressing both her reluctance to believe in God, and her annoyance at Maurice constantly wanting more than she can give. By using lower case lettering, she is again associating the two 'men', as she obviously doesn't like what either of them is trying to make her do.

As it is her 'affair' with God that 'ends' her affair with Bendrix, the language used in her references to God in her diaries often holds the most clues to Sarah's confusion of the two influences. As can be heard from the tone of this next phase, it seems that she describes her relationship with God in the same way she does her affair with Bendrix. She says that 'yesterday I brought a crucifix, a cheap ugly one because I had to do it quickly. I blushed when I asked for it. Someone might have seen me'. These words are written in the hushed tone normally reserved for secrecy - the tone associated with her affair with Maurice. I feel that Greene used this particular type of language to illustrate how powerless people become when they truly believe in something, and for Greene's characters, this often results in the confusion of the contradictory.

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rice Bendrix, one of Greene's chief characters. This can be seen from the opening paragraphs, as Greene uses the first person narrative, as the voice of Maurice Bendrix. The statement, 'this is a record of hate far more than of love', not only indicates that Maurice is perhaps writing his own novel, but also serves to set the tone for the novel, and convey a principle theme - when in love, two subjects which may seem contradictory, or are deemed opposite, can actually merge, an

Some common words found in the essay are:
Miles Sarah's, Bendrix God, Affair' God, Maurice God, Maurice Bendrix, Lodge Greene's, God' Hereby, Acting God, Graham Greene, Greene Bendrix, graham greene, 'the affair', affair' graham greene, affair bendrix, begin believe, control lives, maurice bendrix, example sarah, own lives, david lodge, love bendrix,
Approximate Word count = 1367
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)