Parody Of Early British Spy Fiction In Our Man In Havana

The 20th-century British novelist Graham Greene produced an impressive diversity of works, including 25 novels and also a sustained spectrum of short stories, plays, film scripts, travel memoirs, autobiographies, and critical essays in his over 60 years’ writing career. Roger Sharrock acknowledges him as "our most distinguished novelist". Between 1936 and 1969, Greene himself classified his novels into two groups, namely "serious novels" and "entertainments", with the former concentrating more on the living dilemmas of his characters on the margin between good and evil while the latter being notable for the thrilling plots and popular forms.Most literary researches focus on Greene’s Roman Catholic Novels, Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter, and The End of the Affair. Yet Our Man in Havana, which signifies the maturation of his spy fictions, is seldom studied. Set in the background of the Cold War, this spy fiction not only inherits the suspense and thrilling elements from early British spy fiction, but also distinguishes itself with ubiquitous lies and absurdities. The present author asserts that under the disguise of spy fiction, Our Man in Havana is actually a parody of early British spy fiction represented by works of William Le Queux, Erskine Childers and John Buchan, and through this parody, the novel reflects Greene’s serious pondering over the relationship between individuals and nations, and between fact and fiction in the times of the Cold War.This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter One is Introduction, which introduces Graham Greene’s life and writing career, and the history of British spy fiction. Then it gives a survey of the study of Greene’s works both at home and abroad, and explains the focus and structure of the thesis.Chapters Two to Five make up the body of the thesis. The second chapter analyzes the novel’s parody of early British spy fiction in narrative mode. On one hand, the novel succeeds the tradition of adopting omniscient narration; on the other hand, it deviates from the romantic style of early British spy fiction and ridicules the encode/decode structure. The third chapter illustrates the novel’s parody of early British spy fiction in characterization. The agents in this novel are no longer brave and loyal heroes, but are those who place individualism ahead of patriotic enthusiasm and strive for personal benefits. By contrast, the antagonists are often endowed with a sense of humanity. The fourth chapter discusses the novel’s parody of early British spy fiction in terms of plot. Like most of early British spy fictions, the novel has a sustained atmosphere of suspense and thrill with violence and deaths; however, the comic and absurd events paint it with black humor. The fifth chapter aims at revealing the implications of Greene’s use of parody in this novel. The present author believes that the use of parody helps the writer show the transformation in the political allegiance from the patriotic enthusiasm to personal loyalty, the blurring of fact and fiction in the Cold War and the demystification of real intelligence operation.Through a detailed analysis of the novel’s parodic relationship with the early British spy fiction and the implications of parody, it can be concluded that, in employing the popular form of thrillers, Our Man in Havana is not a passport to an enthralling land of fantasy, but a vehicle for probing in-depth meanings behind the satirical farce. By casting doubt on the real value of intelligence, the essence of secret work and the political allegiance of the secret agents, Greene successfully balances the elements of entertainment and seriousness, which greatly influences other spy fiction writers such as John le Carre.