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REFLECTION OF RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR PROBLEMS AND
MORAL SHORTCOMINGS IN GRAHAM GREENE'S WORKS.
Marifatkhon Boltabayeva
Teacher of the Namangan State Pedagogical Institute
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14636319
Abstract:
In this article, Graham Greene tried to express the characters in
different images in his works, including the child's relationship with his parents,
the formation of the concept of egoism in people and its negative consequences,
spiritual and psychological problems in people and their solutions, religious and
worldly problems, in depicting the problems of society expressed in the works
through their characters
Key words:
The concept of egoism, its types, feelings, the concept of
Freudianism, spiritual outlook, religious and worldly problems, the concept of
politicization, ideas about socialism
According to Sigmund Freud, egoism is the psychological emanation of
everything emotional, physical and biological in a person. Andrew is not only a
coward by nature, but also an egoist. Moreover, he combines two types of
egoism: egoism of interests and "libidinal" egoism. The first type of egoism
represents the instinct of self-preservation, it is the fear that drives many of the
hero's actions. The second type of egoism is based on the instinct of pleasure.
Lust is the second strong feeling that Andrew experiences. From egoism, as from
the root, a psychological personality grows, sharply different from the rational-
active personality (Elizabeth). However, there is more deceit in Elizabeth's
determination than in Andrew's weakness. Although her image is far from
artistic perfection, from the point of view of psychological theory it seems more
perfect.
Andrew's feelings for his father are formed in his mind throughout the
novel. The first mention of his father appears in the unstructured "stream of
consciousness" when the hero is fleeing from smugglers. "How dare you teach
my son this?" - and beat him. His father always called him "my son", as if it was
his father, not his mother, who had suffered and given birth to him. Damn the
old hypocrite. - "God, give me strength" [1]. One can only guess about some facts
from Andrew's life, which indicate his negative attitude towards his father. First
of all, the boy was very attached to his mother and could not stand his father's
beatings. As can be seen from this passage, the mother tried to instill in the boy a
religious feeling, which caused his father's sharp disapproval. Therefore,
Andrew loved the pious Elizabeth very much, because in her image he wanted to
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see his mother.
Freudianism in the novel is closely intertwined with religion. In the
immortality of the human soul, Andrew saw an opportunity to take revenge on
his father: "... then," he hesitated for a moment, "if people do not die completely,
when we bury them we can harm them, we can torment them" [2]. Green's hero
feels only hatred for his father, which does not fully correspond to Freud's
regularity of this relationship. According to Freud, "the child's attitude towards
his father... is two-sided. In addition to the hatred that wants to destroy his
father as a rival, there is usually a certain amount of affection for him. Both
attitudes are united in identification with the father: I wanted to take my father's
place, because he was amazing; I wanted to be like him, so he must disappear."
[3] In G. Green, such a dual attitude is extrapolated to another character - the
character of Carlion, the protagonist's friend, whom Andrew both loved and
hated. Carlion, who took the boy under his protection after his father's death and
turned him into a smuggler, strangely embodied the traits of Andrew's father
and mother. Carlion is a clever and cunning smuggler, he is brave, sometimes
cruel, but he is also an aesthete, for whom moral issues are nothing more than
an opportunity to make a romantic gesture. Carlion's sensitivity to beauty, his
love of poetry attract Andrew to himself. In the fate of the protagonist, Carlion
plays the dual role of friend and enemy at the same time. Later, the friend
crushes the enemy, and Andrew realizes that his confrontation with Carlion
takes place only in his mind: "There was no battle with Carlion, only a fight with
his father. His father betrayed him, his father killed Elizabeth, his father is dead
and unreachable. He was out of reach. Isn't that right? His father's soul was not
wandering. It settled in the div of the son he created. "I am my father," he
thought, "and I killed him"[4]. Thus, the writer, departing from Freud's scheme,
brings his hero to an important conclusion: the source of evil should be sought
not outside, but within.
Although it seems to have faded somewhat in the writer's second and third
novels, Sigmund Freud's motifs are revived in a new phase of G. Green's work,
only now they are mixed with the ideas of the Catholic religion. This connection
can be seen especially clearly in the work "Brighton Rock" (1938). The image of
the juvenile delinquent Pinky is interpreted in two ways: as a Catholic fanatic
and at the same time as a dysfunctional child whose childhood was spent in
"hell". After the novel "The Name of the Movement", romantic tendencies in
Graham Greene's work are less noticeable. The politicization of all aspects of life
that began in the 30s significantly attracts the writer, forcing him to return to the
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cruel reality and look at the events of our time. But even in the era of sharp class
confrontation, the development of fascism and a new wave of violence in Europe,
Green found a place for romanticism in his work. Perhaps the writer achieved
this because he never gave up on his desire to find common ground where there
were superficial differences.
According to one of Green's biographers, William West, in the early 1930s
the writer became close to the Oxford Catholic community through his wife's
connections. The most interesting person among the members of this
community was Bede Jarrett. Bede Jarrett was the spiritual guide of the writer's
wife Vivien, so Green knew the author of "Mediaeval Socialism" (1923) and
"Social Theory in the Middle Ages" (1926) personally.
Another source of Green's ideas about socialism is L. Trotsky's book
"History of the Russian Revolution". “He did not hide his admiration for the
book,” the same biographer notes, “only regretting that he had not had time to
copy from it some passages that seemed to him very important. He was amazed
at how Trotsky made his hero not an individual, but the entire mass: workers,
soldiers, and other participants in the uprising.” [5]
The element of the workers' movement has not yet appeared in "Istanbul
Express", as it will appear in the writer's next novel, "This Battlefield". An
uprising begins in Belgrade and is suppressed outside the scope of the work. The
only connection with the social movement of that time is through the image of
the communist Zinner, the first in a series of similar images in Green's works.
Zinner was a revolutionary. However, the author is far from poeticizing his
image. Dr. Zinner is an old and tired man. Zinner is a defeated man, all the
candles of duty that once connected him to other people have gone out, only the
duty of loyalty to socialism has remained. But in this matter he failed: "... his
empty house is lit only by one dim candle. "I am neither a doctor nor a believer,"
he said, "I am a socialist." This word is uttered by politicians from countless
pulpits, printed in countless newspapers on bad paper in bad type, and it sounds
false to the ear. "Here too I have failed." He was alone, his last candles were
beginning to melt.
It is noticeable that the idea of socialism has not yet deeply affected the
writer, that on the surface of his mind it remains in the form of such attributes of
the social aspirations of the lower classes, vulgarized by newspapers, as
demonstrations in Trafalgar Square, the closure of theaters. At the same time,
Green understands that when a movement becomes popular, it inevitably turns
into mythology. Therefore, his conclusion that "a political movement cannot be
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condemned on the basis of the dishonesty of its leaders" seems important and
valuable.
In conclusion, it should be noted that in Graham Greene's works, the characters
are given various descriptions. For example, we can see that Andrew develops
cruel feelings towards his father, and that the concept of a seal between father
and son is not formed, that is, the concept of egoism is given a very broad
definition in the work. It is expressed in the work that Andrew only forms the
image of his mother in the image of his beloved, and therefore he loves her. In
addition, Green's work "Brighton Rock" (1938) provides a lot of information
about the problems and shortcomings of Catholic fundamentalists through the
image of the juvenile delinquent Pinky.
List of used literature:
1.
Грин Г. Человек внутри. - Спб., 1995. - С.252.
2.
Грин Г. Человек внутри. - Спб., 1995. - С.292.
3.
Фрейд 3. Достоевский и отцеубийство / Фрейд З.Художник и
фантазирование. – Москва, 1995. - С.288.
4.
Buchan, John. The Thirty-Nine Steps. - London, 1960. - P.3
5.
West W. J. The Quest for Graham Greene. - New York, 1998. - P.51
