“The magic of this place never failed him: here he kept his foothold on the very edge of a strange continent.”
This affection for Sierra Leone and its people is what really divides Scobie from the other expatriates, and in contrast to their supercilious characteristics, his genuine and ‘saintly’ quality is emphasised. An example of Scobie’s affection for the indigenous people is seen through Scobie’s strong relationship with Ali, his steward. When Ali is murdered towards the end of the novel, Scobie is overwhelmed with grief, suggesting that Ali was the only person that he really loved:
“ ‘I loved him,’ Scobie said.”
In contrast to this fondness for ‘the blacks’, Wilson, an MI5 agent sent to spy on Scobie, shows a certain disrespect for them when he visits a local brothel in order to overcome his love for Louise. Due to the juxtaposition of these two characters, it becomes evident that Wilson has served to shed a sympathetic on Scobie, in turn highlighting his ‘saintly’ quality further.
The reader can also examine the saint in Scobie, by observing his relationships with others. For example, his marriage with Louise, although not one of passion and adoration, Scobie still feels her happiness is more important than his own:
“If I could just arrange her happiness first, he thought.”
Throughout the novel the reader is aware that Scobie is desperate for peace and to be on his own, yet his anxiety for his wife’s happiness is always on his conscience, and invades his dreams.
Another relationship, which is also a significant part of the novel, is Scobie’s love affair with young Helen Rolt. Immediately the reader is aware of the ‘sinner’ within the character, due to the fact that committing adultery is perceived as a ‘mortal sin’, in the eyes of the Church. He is drawn tot Helen with a paternal affection and like Louise, he also feels that Helen’s happiness comes before his own. Scobie believes he is responsible for not only the happiness of both the women, but also the personality and looks they possess too:
“This is my doing. This is what I’ve made of her. She wasn’t always like this.”
Scobie’s responsibility for Helen is portrayed to be of a sincere nature, and seems to blind him slightly of the fact that he is ‘sinning’ by continuing his affair with her. On the other hand, George Orwell’s critique of the novel suggests that Scobie is fully aware of his misconduct:
“If he believed in Hell, he would not risk going there merely to spare the feelings of a couple of neurotic women.”1
However with reference to this quote, the notion of Catholicism arises. It is evident through Orwell’s account that he has little experience of the religion and therefore, there is a suggestion that his negative perception of Scobie’s predicament has been made through a lack of understanding of the Catholic religion (whether you are Catholic or not), that one can observe not only the ‘sin’ which Scobie is committing, but also the good in the motive behind the ‘sin’ as well as the difficulty Scobie has dealing with his situation, thus agreeing with the paradox seen in the statement ‘the sinner is often the saint’.
There is a sort of arrogance projected through Scobie’s sense of responsibility and it is highlighted further when Scobie portrays himself in a Christ-like manner, and continues by justifying his future suicide by implicating that Christ too killed himself:
“Christ had not been murdered: you couldn’t murder God. Christ had killed himself…”
It is such lines as these, spoken by Scobie, that indicate this notion of arrogance which the modern reader will frown upon, thus highlighting his characteristic of a ‘sinner’.
Pity appears to be one of the recurrent themes throughout the novel, hidden in the symbolic meaning of the ‘rusty handcuffs’, as well as being conveyed explicitly. The reader soon becomes aware that Scobie is consumed by his pity for others and is bound by it like the handcuffs. The most apparent example is his pity for Louise:
“These were the times of ugliness when he loved her, when pity and responsibility reached the intensity of passion.”
His pity for Louise seems to have replaced the love and affection he once felt for her, and the fact that she is no longer young and beautiful, only intensifies the sense of his responsibility to her, because he believed ‘…the beautiful and the graceful and the intelligent…could find their own way.” It is also this kind of pity, which forces him to stay with Helen, occurring through her innocence, loneliness and ugliness:
“The ugliness was like handcuffs on his wrists.”
Due to the colonial context of the novel, it is made apparent that Sierra Leone is a place of mass corruption, which is revealed through the descriptions Greene creates as well as symbols of ‘flapping vultures’ and references to brothels as well as the oppressive heat. This corruption also exists within the colonists, seen through their snobbery and disregard of the indigenous people. However, as the critic O’Prey states in his response to the novel, Scobie is ‘an honest man who is not corrupted by money or power but by sentiment.’2:
“They had been corrupted by money, and he had been corrupted by sentiment. Sentiment was more dangerous, because you couldn’t name its price.”
This notion of sentiment being ‘dangerous’ leads to the idea that the structure of this novel can be viewed in the light of a Tragedy, whereby Scobie is the tragic hero, and his fatal flaw is the sentiment of pity for others. An example of this in the novel is when Scobie pities the Portuguese Captain, and violates the laws of the police force by destroying the letter found on board his hip. William Du Bous, the book reviewer of the New York Times in 1948 claimed:
“…the Portuguese shi-captain who finds the first chink in Scobie’s armour – a scoundrel with a sentimental core, who comes completely alive in a singles scene, thanks to Mr. Greene’s genius for thumb-nail sketching.”3
This idea of ‘the first chink in Scobie’s armour’ insinuates that it is the meeting with the Captain, which brings about this ‘spiral’ of corruption, eventually resulting in Scobie’s suicide. In relation to this whole idea of pity being Scobie’s source of corruption, it can be said that although corruption is based on an emotion, and a desire to relieve pain rather than to cause it, thus suggesting that he should be regarded as a ‘saint’.
As mentioned earlier, this notion of corruption is extended as Greene has used descriptions of Sierra Leone to create a seedy atmosphere that projects this sense of corruption, as expected in this colonial environment:
“…vultures strolled like domestic turkeys in the regimental refuse.”
The symbol of the vultures is repeated throughout the novel to emphasise the shady nature of the setting, reflecting this notion of Scobie as a ‘sinner’. This concept of corruption is extended by Scobie’s involvement with Yusef. Yusef as mentioned before, is the villain in the novel and it is Scobie’s relationship with him that soon results in the tragedy of the death of his steward and best friend Ali.
With regard to the title of the book, ‘The Heart of the matter’ in this novel is undoubtedly the subject of Catholicism and therefore succeeds in putting this novel into a religious context. Scobie’s obvious, and endless struggle with his faith is evident throughout the novel. Similar to the symbol of the ‘handcuff’s that Greens has used to signify Scobie’s obsession with pity, his struggle with Catholicism is symbolised by a ‘broken rosary’:
“Only the broken rosary caught his eye – something which should have been mended a long while ago.”
This image of the rosary being ‘broken’, in turn suggests a break in Scobie’s faith and relationship with God. Such events as the death of Pemberton serve to try Scobie’s faith even more. Scobie refuses to accept that the suicide of someone as young as Pemberton will be un-forgiven by God. He feels that God must have mercy for the innocent:
“…we’d be damned because we know, but he doesn’t know a thing”
Greene’s own experiences a Catholic are expressed through Scobie’s toil with religion. He converted to Catholicism in the 1920’s and was surprised and horrified by the rigidity of the Church’s laws as he states in ‘A Sort of Life’:
“It was the Rock of Peter I was aware of in our long drive, and though it repulsed me, I couldn’t help but admire its unyielding façade.”4
Greene’s complex fascination with Catholicism is echoed through the character of Scobie, thus leading to an intricate paradox caused by the uncertainty of whether to doubt the church’s teachings and be a ‘sinner’ or obey them and be a ‘saint’.
However, as much as Scobie doubts God, and questions and insults Him, his love for Him is still noticeable through the fact that he never strays, which may also be a reflection of Greene’s own feelings towards his God. Even though Scobie does not agree entirely with the Church’s teachings, he still has a strong belief in God. When this idea is compared to the definition of a ‘sinner’, one who transgresses God’s will, it can be said that Scobie does not fully fit the description, because of his love for God.
In conclusion, it can be said that through an analysis of Scobie the reader is able to decipher that his character is somewhat complex, therefore making it apparent that he is both ‘sinner’ and ‘saint’, in turn causing ambivalent reactions amongst modern day readers. When this view is further explored it becomes obvious that Scobie is merely ‘human’, due to the fact that the motive behind his ‘sins’ was moral, and mainly for the benefit of others. It is because of this that the reader may presume that in Scobie’s case, the good overrides the evil. Evidence to support this idea can be seen at the very end of the novel, by examining the dialogue between Father Rank and Louise Scobie:
“The Church knows all the rules but it doesn’t know what goes on in a single human heart.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 George Orwell – “The Sanctified Sinner”
2 P. O’Prey – “A Reader’s Guide to Graham Greene”
3 William Du Bous – “The Heart of the Matter” Book Review (1948) – www.newyorktimes.com
4 Graham Greene – “A Sort of Life”