Travel Literature viewed in a Perspective of History of Ideas: Graham Greene's The Lawless Roads and The Power and The Glory

Abstract

My major concern has been to reveal how Greene presented his ideas, and to trace them back to history of ideas in the inter war period. I have focused on a number of interrelated topics including: travel, travel literature, time and travel, and the influence of various directions within history of ideas.

I have chosen to work with the author Graham Greene, who presented two important books in the interwar period. Greene wrote a travel book The Lawless Roads (1939) and a novel The Power and The Glory (1940).These books originate from his visit to Mexico in 1938. Greene went to Mexico on a mission in order to investigate the alleged atrocities against the Roman Catholic Church.

The fact that these books were published late in the interwar period is very interesting in this particular context. The interwar period is an extremely important era in European history. Industrial stagnation and mass unemployment prevail. People are left with a sense of loss and religious uncertainty. Thoughts of decay and pessimism are dominant. This development forced people to rethink and evaluate their cultural values and self-image. These stirrings revealed themselves in art and literature

The main focus of history of ideas is to relate various topics like history, politics, religion, psychology and philosophy. The reason why the inter war period is particularly interesting is because of the major changes that took place.

Graham Greene deals with numerous topics in his books, faith, betrayal, politics, love, hate, evil, and decay. He has been a very exiting writer to work with, mostly because he choose write about a number of complex topics. These topics have been very significant to my investigation, and I have studied his texts carefully. Mostly, I have used examples from the texts to substantiate connections to the history of ideas.