An example of Henrys respect towards police is: “I lead them into the dinning room” . This quote is at the beggining of the play. However as the play progresses Henrys attitude changes. “Police business of course, I said. What other business do you deal in?”. This quote shows that Henrys personality is changing, the respect and politness he had seems to have dissapered. Hawever Henry realises that hes attitude is being influenced by his aunt: “It was almost as though my aunt were speaking through me.”
As Green uses Augusta to mock most values he potrays her as an inconditional character who showed no respect or very little towards the police, authorities. She’s a woman who lives her life as she likes and does not care about legal or illegal attitudes. Graham Greene mocks the stereotypical character of an old lady. We, the audience, would expect her to be calm, religious woman and married women but instead she is very active and “irresponsible” person. “I wasn’t thinking of Paris, I was thinking of Istanbul.”, this quotation shows how adventurous and active Augusta is, she prefers going to Istanbul than going to Paris which is nearer. Moreover, Augusta isn’t married but has a negro “boyfriend”. “I have an extraordinary story to tell you, my aunt said, I have been raided by the police”. Its is actually very surprising that na old lady, aged above 60 can be raided by the police.
Also Graham Greene mocks daily life style and behaviours, an example is again aunt Augusta, she’s very attracted to men whilst an stereotypical woman of her age wouldn’t.
“I let them in, though, because they were polite and one of them, the one in uniform, was tall and good-looking “. We can appreciate that Augusta is greatly attracted by men, despise her age.
Greene mocks religion when he writes about Mr. Viscounti disguising himself as a priest. This creates comedy and causes us to laught. The fact that Mr. Visconti confesses sexual relations is comic. A priest would never talk about anything like sex. This hsows hoe Greene mocks the religious values. Graham Greene mocks religion when he writes about Mr. Viscounti disguising himself as a priest.
After having spending some time with his aunt Augusta and learning more about her mysteriuos life, Henry has started to become less traditional, he is starting to have a different attitude towards different aspects of life. A clear example is when Henry smokes pot with Tooley and also that he knows he is doing illegal things but he does not care. “I must confess that I had an extra five pound note folded up in my ticket pocket”, this quotation shows that Henry knows what he is doing something incorrect but still he carries his action out.
The normal thing we would have expected is Augusta to be alarmed or worried with drugs but instead she is quite relaxed and she sees it as a normal thing, so therefore this is another case of mocking the stereotypical characters of old people.
“They found marijuana dust in the fluff of his suit”
“Oh dear, how careless of the poor boy. I thought he was a little disturbed”. This is a very clear example of Augustas attitude towards drugs. When Henry tells her that the police found pot in Wordswords suit she doesnt care much. Henry however is alarmed by this.
“People who talk about there being no harm in pot”
“Is there?” If we take this quotation we can see that Henrys attitude is changed completely. He is now talking with no worries and acts as if pot was a normal thing.
In conclusion Greene mocks all these values throught the characters. He shows no or little respect towards thigs we would consider very important and worth respecting. However the mocking of these things cause comedy and we laught.