Spiritual Crisis In Graham Greene’s A Burnt-Out Case

In A Burnt-out Case,Graham Greene employs ’spiritual leprosy’ as a metaphor to describe the spiritual crisis of the protagonist—Querry.The present dissertation adopts the New Criticism approach to analyze the cause,symptoms,treatment,and result of Querry’s spiritual crisis from both Catholicism and existentialism perspectives.By examining the relationships between patient and disease,patient and other people,as well as patient and milieu,the dissertation tends to reveal Querry ’s courage to seek the cause of his illness and his positive attitude towards treatment of the disease and last but not least,his denunciation of the society overwhelmed by the Catholic mindset.At first,Querry attempts to recognize that vanity is why he has lost his belief and ability to love—no love for God,women,and his work after giving up his Catholic faith and focusing on himself.Querry reconsiders his life from the perspective of existentialism.He recognizes the importance of human pride,challenges the negation of human value in Catholicism after understanding Deo Gratias’s faith,and admits to being serene when being needed by others after his rescue of Deo Gratias.Through Querry’s active communication with Doctor Colin,he leaves his ’selfdiscomforts’ aside and empathizes with the sufferings of the lepers.His involvement with other people in concrete things in the process of the hospital’s design evinces a possible emergence of his new faith.In a society overwhelmed by Catholic doctrines,Montagu Parkinson and Mme.Rycker reach their goals by taking advantage of Querry’s fame;Father Thomas and Mr.Rycker’s views on Querry change sharply from a saint to a demon due to their irrational Catholic mindset.The four persons’ performance demonstrates the’inauthenticity’ and ’bad faith’ of existentialism.Such a society leads to the death of Querry.Through the confrontation between Catholicism and existentialism,Graham Greene condemns a sort of Catholic mindset for its ignorance of facts and seeks a new existential faith that stems from reality and true feelings.