Impact Factor: 6.78 Journal Quality Score (JQS): 85.34
    Email Id: chiefeditor.ijeel@gmail.com
    Impact Factor: 6.78 Journal Quality Score (JQS): 85.34
    Email Id: chiefeditor.ijeel@gmail.com

    Paradox and Irony in Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory

    Journal Article
    Author(s)
    Elizabeth T. AyukAko
    Keywords
    Paradox, Irony, Grace, Sin, Christian Realism.
    Abstract
    Graham Greene’s The Power and the glory, arguably his boldest and most penetrating exploration of faith, stands as a masterwork of paradox and irony. Through the deeply flawed figures of the whisky priest and Marxist Lieutenant, Greene dismantles the traditional Judeo Christian assumption that redemption is attainable only through a state of grace. Instead, he proposed a radical inversion: spiritual clarity and salvation emerge through human weakness, bodily desire, and moral failure. This paper examines how Greene’s ironic vision transforms sin into the ground of grace, revealing a theology in which spiritual sanity arises not from purity, but from the struggle with imperfection. By tracing the priest’s evolution from prideful cleric to “glorified sinner,” and the Lieutenant’s journey from ideological certainty to existential disillusionment, this study argues that Greene positions sin as the crucible of spiritual awakening. Situating the novel within Greene’s historical, cultural, and religious contexts, this paper contends that Greene is one of the twentieth century’s most incisive Christian realists, misunderstood precisely because of his sophisticated use of paradox and irony as tools for realism and spiritual inquiry.
    References

    Adande Mehounou, M., Abadame, M., & Adounsiba, G. (2017). A critical analysis of the priest in The Power and the glory by Graham Greene. International journal on studies in English Language and Literature, 5(4), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.20431/2347-3134.0504001

    Allott, M. (1951). Graham Greene: The novelist. Longmans, Green.

    Bosco, M. (2004). “From The Power and the Glory to The Honorary Consul: The development of Graham Greene’s Catholic imagination”. Religion and Literature, 36(2), 51–74.

    Butler, M. (2004). The Cristero Rebellion: Religion, conflict, and the struggle for public life in Mexico. Cambridge University Press.

    Cates, B. (2000). “Waning power and faded glory: Greene’s conception of God”. In Graham Greene’s fictions: The virtues of extremity (pp. 49–89). [Publisher not provided].

    Couto, M. (1988). “The solitude of a writer”. In Graham Greene: On the frontier—Politics and religion in the novels of Greene (pp. 420–422). St. Martin’s Press.

    De Vitis, A. A. (1986). Graham Greene. Twayne Publishers.

    Greene, G. (2019). The power and the glory. Penguin.

    Hankey, W. J. (2019). Graham Greene’s conversion: The Power and the Glory III [Manuscript]. Academia.edu. https://www.academia.edu/

    Jakub, K. (2021). Flannery O’Connor and Graham Greene: The divine lover. Graduate Review, 1(1), Article 9. https://openspaces.unk.edu/grad-review/vol1/iss1/9

    Karl, F. R. (1972). Greene’s demoniacal heroes. In The contemporary English novel (p. 88). Thames and Hudson.

    Karl, F. R. (1972). The spiritual suffering of Greene’s whisky priest. Modern Fiction Studies, 18(4), 951–960.

    Knight, A. (1986). The Mexican Revolution (Vols. 1–2). Cambridge University Press.

    Kern, R. (2011). The wisdom of the heart: Saintliness, narrative, and the problem of exemplarity. Baylor University Press.

    Loddegaard, A. (2008). “The silence of God in the modern Catholic novel: Graham Greene and French Catholic novelists adopting a Pascalian Deus Absconditus perspective”. Forum on Public Policy, 1 – 11. https://forumonpublicpolicy.com/summer08papers/archivesummer08/loddegaard.pdf

    Maher, E. (2015). Sanctity in the midst of mediocrity: Graham Greene’s whisky priest. Spirituality, 21(122), 311–314.

    Margaret, D. (Ed.). (1985). Graham Greene. In The Oxford companion to English literature (pp. 414–415). Oxford University Press.

    Mudford, P. (1996). Graham Greene. Northcote House.

    Ray, G. N. (2005). Authority, subversion, and (re)legitimation: A study of Greene’s The Power and the Glory. The Atlantic Critical Review, 4(1), 10–21.

    Schmal, J. P. (2020). The Mexican Revolution and its aftermath, 1910–1929. Indigenous Mexico. https://www.indigenousmexico.org/articles/the-mexican-revolution-and-its-aftermath-1910-1929

    Sherry, N. (1989). The life of Graham Greene: Volume 2, 1939–1955. Viking.

    Sherry, N. (1974). The life of Graham Greene: Volume 1, 1904–1939. Jonathan Cape.

    The New York Times. (1983, April 3). The uneasy Catholicism of Graham Greene. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1983/04/03/069931.html

    Valverde, B., & Bosco, M. (2019). “Living on the frontier of Catholicism: Graham Greene’s disloyal conversions”. European Journal of English Studies, 23(1), 41–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/13825577.2019.1594143

    How to Cite
    Loading APA citation...
    Article Details
    Published 08 Aug 2026
    DOI 10.22161/ijeel.5.4.5
    Pages 39-55
    Views 11
    Downloads 0
    Full Text Access