Capacity for Damnation and the Grace of God in The Power and the Glory

The Power and the Glory takes up the subject of religious persecution and possibly divine grace something which novelists have tried to avoid for some reason or the other. The novel does not concern itself only with parables and it does not offer any morals. The significance of the novel lies in the literary treatment of an otherwise religious theme. Though the archetypal form and image of Brighton Rock is also found here in the novel, according to Walter Allen, ‘rises triumphantly clear of the parable’. But the temptation to draw a parallel with the movements of the action of the novel and a parable is too great to be done away with totally. In both the novels Greene was trying to restore the religious sense of the English novel that had been lost with the death of Henry James. Talking about Henry James’s novels in his essay Henry James:The Religious Aspect, Greene writes that James’ novels ‘are only saved from the deepest cynicism by the religious sense; the struggle between the beautiful and the treacherous is lent, as in Hardy’s novels, the importance of the supernatural, human nature is not despicable in Osmond or Densher, for they are both capable of damnation.’ (1961:40) For Greene the religious sense in novels was of significance and as far as the characters were concerned, the question whether they were good or bad, was immaterial. What was significant was their capacity for damnation, for if they were capable of damnation, they were fit for the grace of God and the final salvation. Referring to Eliot’s essay on Baudelaire a little later, where he states that ‘the glory of man is his capacity for salvation; it is also true to say that his glory is his capacity for damnation. The worst that can be said of most malefactors, from statesmen to thieves, is that they are not men enough to be damned.’ (Ibid:41).