Graham Greene: Violence against Women and Male Power

Abstract

Male violence, being a common motif in fiction today, concerns all women, as the radical feminists argue. The present paper deals with the theme of male power and violence against women as perceived in the novels of Graham Greene. His novels are concerned with various forms of injustice – the injustice inherent in the patriarchal order in which men enjoy a natural precedence and power over women who are seen as mere objects or the body or the “other”. The violence against women occurs in all kinds of social spheres women and men share whether it is the public arena, the public-private world of work or the private space of a woman’s home. His novels are cluttered with conventional images of women. Man-woman relationship in Greene is usually battered into a precarious no-win situation leading to sexual disgust, emotional betrayal and broken homes.