The Heart of the Matter 503from the doctrines and toward matters of the heart.
He claims that both the human heart and God’s
mercy are unknowable. This scene illustrates the
importance of religion in the novel, as our sense of a
resolved plot depends upon our accepting the terms
of the debate.
Thus, the Catholic faith exerts its influence not
merely on the characters’ minds but also on the text
of the narrative. Greene artfully conveys a Christian
view of evil in the scene in which Scobie and Helen
first kiss. It is not a matter so much of him seduc-
ing her or her seducing him but of the two of them
being seduced by a moment. As is so often true, the
narrator’s comment on this turn of events gives it a
Catholic pall; he says that the apparent “safety” of
their relationship was actually “the camouflage of an
enemy.” Here, temptation is revealed to be demonic
and malevolent. It is one thing to say that Yusef and
Wilson are devil figures in the novel, but Greene
goes further, with a vision of a sentient, supernatural
evil that works through seduction and deception.
In a similar vein, it is one thing to say that Ali is
a Christ figure, but Greene’s character assumes a
divine grace attendant upon the crucifixion and res-
urrection of the actual Christ.
The same Christian perspective is evident in
Scobie’s character flaw. In many respects, he is a
typical tragic hero and can be read profitably as such:
He is a man of high rank who is not entirely good
or bad; he has a character flaw that leads him to an
act of hubris, or excessive pride that precipitates his
downfall and has consequences that extend beyond
the individual. Scobie lacks a clear moment of self-
recognition, though a Christian recasting of such a
moment might be implied by Father Rank’s closing
remarks. If self-recognition is the grace note of the
Greek tragic hero, then the priest holds out the pos-
sibility that in God’s grace Scobie will after death
see his sin clearly enough to finally be able to repent
it. Like his self-recognition, Scobie’s hubris is col-
ored by faith. What he seems most to be guilty of is
a pride that masquerades as compassion and virtue.
The text observes: “Virtue, the good life, tempted
him in the dark like a sin.” He believes that he is
important, that he can make a sacrifice that in its
way exceeds that of Christ, for he is risking eternal
death to provide a little solace to others. Even worse,
Scobie understands the consequences of his actions,
he even recognizes his own self-destructiveness,
but he never seems to see the pride that taints his
perspective. The pride of good works is a uniquely
Christian vice, a moral trap that one finds along the
path of virtue. The reader sees by the end of the
novel that Scobie’s heroic virtue is also his undo-
ing, that his humility is partial and blind and does
not prevent the inflation of ego that makes tragedy
possible.
The very tenor of the novel’s emotions, then,
would not be possible without the Catholic faith
of the author and his characters. In Greene it is
always evident that, ultimately, it is only with defec-
tive vision that one sees a universe where, as for the
existential hero, the absurd fact of our existence pre-
cludes any possible meaning. Scobie suffers because
life does have a meaning, a religious dimension, that
he can neither reject nor embrace.
Scott DanielSuFFerinG in The Heart of the Matter
Suffering is a palpable atmospheric effect in Graham
Greene’s The Heart of the Matter. It is as geographic
and meteorological as it is psychological. His title,
perhaps a play on Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, points
to an understanding of this setting as a metaphor for
a universal human condition. Indeed, if one thinks
of the title as an implied riddle, and asks what lies
at the heart of the matter, suffering might well be
the answer.
Every character copes with suffering differently
and, indeed, suffering treats each character differ-
ently, taking the measure of his or her soul. Harris’s
relatively shallow suffering is a function of idleness,
and the solution is to turn killing cockroaches into
a sport, a sort of poor man’s lacrosse. While his suf-
fering is all but alleviated by this game, his neigh-
bor Wilson has a surplus of suffering that a mere
pastime, however violent and competitive, will not
assuage. His suffering has a shallowness of its own,
though, as he pursues an emotional affair with Lou-
ise for largely egotistical reasons. For him, besting
Scobie in a romantic rivalry is sufficient succor. His
fulfillment hinges, then, on one person, on Louise.
Not so Louise: Her loneliness is of epic proportions.
Though in many ways crippled by her suffering, she