The Heart of the Matter
 | | Author | Graham Greene | | Country | United Kingdom | | Language | English | | Genre(s) | Spy novel | | Publisher | Bodley Head | | Released | 1948 | | Media Type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) | | Pages | ~pagecount (~binding~ edition)~ | | ISBN | ~ISBN ~999999999~ (~hardcover~ edition)~ | | Preceded by | ~prior book in series if relevant~ | | Followed by | ~subsequent book in series if relevant~ | -
The Heart of the Matter (1948) is a novel by British author Graham Greene. Image File history File links GrahamGreene_The_HeartOfTheMatter. ...
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene, OM (October 2, 1904 – April 3, 1991) was a prolific English novelist, playwright, short story writer and critic whose works explore the ambiguities of modern man and ambivalent moral or political issues in a contemporary setting. ...
The spy fiction genre (sometimes called political thriller) first arose just before the First World War, at about the same time, the first organized intelligence agencies were being formed. ...
Bodley Head has been, since 1987, an imprint of Random House. ...
1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ...
A hardcover (or hardback or hardbound) book is bound with rigid protective covers (typically of cardboard covered with cloth or heavy paper) and a stitched spine. ...
Paperback may refer to a kind of book binding by which papers are simply folded without cloth or leather and bound - usually with glue rather than stitches or staples - into a thick paper cover; or to a book with this type of binding. ...
Don Henley Donald Hugh Henley (born July 22, 1947 in Gilmer, Texas) is an American rock musician who is the drummer and one of the lead singers and songwriters of the band Eagles. ...
The End of the Innocence is the third album by Don Henley, released in 1989 (see 1989 in music). ...
Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe; title page of 1719 newspaper edition A novel (from French nouvelle, new) is an extended fictional narrative in prose. ...
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene, OM (October 2, 1904 – April 3, 1991) was a prolific English novelist, playwright, short story writer and critic whose works explore the ambiguities of modern man and ambivalent moral or political issues in a contemporary setting. ...
Plot introduction It deals with Catholicism and moral change in the protoganist, Scobie. Greene wrote the novel drawing on a background he got to know operating as a British intelligence officer in Freetown, Sierra Leone. (Although the location is not specifically mentioned throughout the novel, it can easily be deduced.) This article considers Catholicism in the broadest ecclesiastical sense. ...
Map of Sierra Leone showing the capital Freetown Freetown, population 1,070,200 (2004), is the largest city and capital of Sierra Leone, lying on the Freetown Peninsula on the Atlantic coast. ...
Explanation of the novel's title The book's title appears about halfway through the novel in the following passage: - If one knew, he wondered, the facts, would one have to feel pity even for the planets? if one reached what they called the heart of the matter?
Plot summary Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. Major Henry Scobie is a longtime police inspector in a British colonial town on the West Coast of Africa during the World War II, responsible for providing both local and wartime security as well as controlling smuggling. He is married to Louise, a solitary woman who loves literature and poetry but struggles to form social relationships, but he does not love her. He feels responsible for her happiness, but is unable to love anyone, including himself. They had a daughter, Catherine, who died at school in England several years before. Louise calls Henry “Ticki,” although it’s apparent that he dislikes the nickname. Louise is a devout Catholic, and for her sake Henry converted to Catholicism. Although he firmly believes in the teachings of Catholicism, his practice of his faith is largely superficial. World map of colonialism at the end of the Second World War in 1945. ...
A satellite composite image of Africa Africa is the worlds second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia. ...
Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead:17 million Civilian dead:33 million Total dead:50 million Military dead:8 million Civilian dead:4 million Total dead:12 million World War II...
Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location (dark green) within the British Isles Languages None official English de facto Capital None official London de facto Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population – Total (mid-2004) – Total (2001...
Religious conversion is the adoption of new religious beliefs that differ from the converts previous beliefs; in some cultures (e. ...
This article considers Catholicism in the broadest ecclesiastical sense. ...
The word faith has various uses; its central meaning is similar to belief, trust or confidence, but unlike these terms, faith tends to imply a transpersonal rather than interpersonal relationship – with God or a higher power. ...
Scobie is passed over yet again for a promotion to Commissioner, causing Louise great distress, both for her personal ambition and her hopes that the local British community will begin to accept her. Louise asks Scobie to send her away to South Africa, and then to join her there in a few years when he can retire.
At the same time, a new inspector, named Wilson, arrives in the town. He is priggish and socially inept, and hides his passion for poetry for fear of ostracism from his colleagues. He and Louise strike up a friendship, which Wilson mistakes for love. Wilson rooms with another colleague named Harris, who has created a sport for himself of killing the cockroaches that appear in the apartment each night. He invites Wilson to join him, but in the first match, they end up quarreling over the rules of engagement.
One of Scobie’s duties is to lead the inspections of local passenger ships, particularly looking for smuggled diamonds, a needle-in-a-haystack problem that never yields results. A Portuguese ship, the Esperança (the Portuguese word for "hope"), comes into port, and a disgruntled steward reveals the location of a letter hidden in the captain’s quarters. Scobie finds it, and because it is addressed to someone in Germany, he must confiscate it in case it should contain secret codes or other clandestine information. The captain says it’s a letter to his daughter and begs Scobie to forget the incident, offering him a bribe of one hundred pounds when he learns that they share a faith. Scobie declines the bribe and takes the letter, but rather than submit it to his superiors, he reads it and burns it after deciding that it was innocuous.
Scobie is called to a small inland town to deal with the suicide of the local inspector, a man named Pemberton, who was in his early twenties and left a note implying that his suicide was due to a loan he couldn’t repay. Scobie suspects the involvement of the local agent of a Syrian man named Yusef, a local black marketeer. Yusef denies it, but warns Scobie that the British have sent a new inspector specifically to look for diamonds; Scobie claims this is a hoax and that he doesn't know of any such man. Scobie later dreams that he is in Pemberton's situation, even writing a similar note, but when he awakens, he tells himself that he could never commit suicide, as no cause is worth the eternal damnation that suicide would bring. For other uses, see Suicide (disambiguation). ...
The black market or underground market is the part of economic activity involving illegal dealings, typically the buying and selling of merchandise or services (for example sexual services in many countries) illegally. ...
Scobie tries to secure a loan from the bank to pay the two hundred pound fee for Louise’s passage, but is turned down. Yusef offers to lend Scobie the money at four percent per annum. Scobie initially declines, but after an incident where he mistakenly thinks Louise is contemplating suicide, he accepts the loan and sends Louise to South Africa. Wilson meets them at the pier and tries to interfere with their parting.
Shortly afterwards, the survivors of a shipwreck begin to arrive after forty days at sea in lifeboats. One young girl dies as Scobie tries to comfort him by pretending to be the girl’s father, who was killed in the wreck. A nineteen-year-old woman named Helen Rolt also arrives in bad shape, clutching an album of postage stamps. She was married before the ship left its original port and is now a widow, and her wedding ring is too big for her finger. Scobie feels drawn to her, as much to the cherished album of stamps as to her physical presence.
He soon starts passionate affair with her, all the time being aware that he is committing a grave sin - adultery. A letter he writes to Helen ends up in Yusef's hands, and the Syrian uses it to blackmail Scobie into sending a letter for him via the returning Esperança, thus avoiding the censors. SiN is a computer game developed by Ritual Entertainment and published by Activision in late 1998. ...
Man and woman undergoing public exposure for adultery in Japan, around 1860 Adultery is generally defined as consensual sexual intercourse by a married person with someone other than their lawful spouse. ...
When Louise unexpectedly returns, Scobie struggles to keep her ignorant of his love affair. But he is unable to renounce Helen, even in the confessional, so the priest tells him to think it over again and postpones absolution. Still, in order to please his wife, Scobie goes to mass with her and thus receives communion in state of "mortal sin" - one of the gravest sins for a Catholic to commit. This refers to the Roman Catholic practice. ...
Mass is a property of a physical object that quantifies the amount of matter it contains. ...
The Eucharist or Communion or The Lords Supper, is the rite that Christians perform in fulfillment of Jesus instruction, recorded in the New Testament, to do in memory of him what he did at his Last Supper. ...
According to the beliefs of Catholicism, a mortal sin, as distinct from a venial sin, must meet all of the following conditions: its subject must be ‘grave matter’; it must be committed with full knowledge, both of the sin and of the gravity of the offense; it must be committed...
Shortly after witnessing Yusef's boy delivering a 'gift' to Scobie, Ali is killed by wharf rats, we are led to believe that Yusef arranged this, although Scobie blames himself. In the body of his dead servant, Scobie sees the image of God.
Now desperate, he decides to free everyone from himself - even God - so he commits suicide, being aware that this would end in damnation according to the teaching of the Church. But his efforts prove useless in the end - Louise had been not as naive as he had believed, the affair with Helen and the suicide are found out, and his wife is left behind wondering about the mercy and forgiveness of God. Michelangelos depiction of God in the painting Creation of the Sun and Moon in the Sistine Chapel Krishna, the eighth incarnation of Vishnu, one of the manifestations of the ultimate reality or God in Hinduism This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ...
For other uses, see Suicide (disambiguation). ...
// Religious In some forms of Western Christian belief, damnation to hell is the punishment of God for persons with unredeemed sin. ...
Mercy is a term used to describe the leniency or compassion shown by one person to another, or a request from one person to another to be shown such leniency or compassion. ...
Rembrandt - The Return of the Prodigal Son Forgiveness is the action or process of ceasing to feel resentment or anger against another person for an offence or mistake, or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution. ...
Michelangelos depiction of God in the painting Creation of the Sun and Moon in the Sistine Chapel Krishna, the eighth incarnation of Vishnu, one of the manifestations of the ultimate reality or God in Hinduism This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ...
Characters in "The Heart of the Matter" - Major Henry Scobie – is a longtime police inspector
- Louise Scobie – Henry's wife
- Catherine Scobie – their deceased daughter
- Ali – Scobie's long time African servant
- Wilson – new inspector
- Harris – housemate to Wilson
- Pemberton – inspector who is killed
- Helen Rolt – newly arriving widow
- Yusef – Syrian local black marketeer
Main themes Spoilers end here.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations The Heart of the Matter has been adapted for films twice, once in 1954 for the cinema, and once in 1983 for television. The 1954 version was criticized for softening the book's severe ending. Martin Scorsese is also developing a film adaptation which he plans to direct; the project is being produced by Terrence Malick.[1] See also: 1953 in film 1954 1955 in film 1950s in film years in film film Events May 12 - The Marx Brothers Zeppo Marx divorces wife Marion Benda. ...
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Martin Scorsese at Cannes in 2002 Martin Scorsese (born November 17, 1942 in Queens, New York, USA) is an American film director. ...
Terrence Malick (born November 30, 1943, Waco, Texas) is an enigmatic American film director, screenwriter, and producer. ...
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