An Analysis Of The Conflicts Of The Characters In Graham Greene's Novels

This thesis analyzes three kinds of conflicts in the confusing world of Greene's works after reading some major works of Greene and some other related papers. There is the conflict between characters and the material world in terms of the relationship between the subject and the object. There is the conflict for the characters whether to believe the religion or not to believe it in terms of the relationship between characters and their beliefs. And there is the conflict between the characters'personas and their inner souls according to Jung's theory. The conflicts cover nearly all cases in Greene's works and worth much attention.Some other papers have done certain analysis of this kind, but they didn't go deep to do it systematically. The characters in Greene's novels show many conflicts in different levels. This thesis will analyze each type of conflicts from its presented forms, its deep reasons, and its essence.This thesis will use Carl Jung's Persona theory to analyze the conflicts of the characters. The theory states that people in material life wear a mask to live. There is quite a lot difference between their personas and their inner souls. Only by making a deep research into the characters'personas and their souls can people understand the novels better. Some other theories and concepts, such as Hegel's classification of the world into spiritual world and material world and the concept of modernity will also be involved.The three kinds of conflicts mentioned above are the analysis targets of this thesis. Through specific analysis, the thesis shows that the three types of conflicts in Greene's novels can reflect the conflicts in modern people's life, or the survival crisis of them. And also, the thesis gives good explanations to how the conflicts in the novels could be similar to the conflicts in modern people's life. Through the systematical analysis in the paper, people can understand the characters in Greene's works better, know the major works better, know the religious meaning reflected in the works, know the outer personas and the inner souls of the characters, and know the greatness of the works.This thesis starts with the introduction. This part introduces Greene's life and his major works, and the literature reviews on his works. Chapter one mainly introduces what the three major conflicts are, and the theories and concepts that are applied. Chapter two is about the analysis of the conflicts between the individual as subject and the material world as object. Chapter three is about the analysis of the conflicts between the characters and their beliefs. This includes the description of the belief crisis in the novels and the characters'struggle with their spiritual world. Chapter four is about the conflicts between the characters'personas and the true selfhood or their inner souls.