The end of the party by Graham Greene

Biography
Graham Greene, in full Henry Graham Greene, (born October 2, 1904, Berkhamsted,
Hertfordshire, England—died April 3, 1991, Vevey, Switzerland), was an English novelist, short-
story writer, playwright, and journalist whose novels treat life’s moral ambiguities in the context of
contemporary political settings.
Greene was born in 1904, the fourth of six children. His family was comfortable and, by and large,
accomplished. An older brother, Raymond, grew up to be an important endocrinologist; a
younger brother, Hugh, became the director-general of the BBC; the youngest child, Elisabeth,
went to work for M.I.6, England’s foreign-intelligence operation. As was usual with prosperous
people of that period, the children were raised by servants, but they were brought
downstairs to play with their mother every day for an hour after tea.
The family lived in Berkhamsted, a small, pleasant satellite town of London. It had a respectable
boys’ school, of which Greene’s father was the headmaster. Greene was sent there at age seven, and
thanks to his position as the director’s son he was relentlessly persecuted by his classmates. They
then suspected him of telling on them to his father and therefore, it seems, went after him harder.

As an adolescent, he began attempting suicide—or seeming to—always with almost comic

ineptness. Once, according to his mother, he tried to kill himself by ingesting eye drops.
He also appears to have experimented, at different times, with allergy drops, deadly
nightshade, and fistfuls of aspirin. Most often remarked on was his fondness for Russian
roulette, although his brother Raymond, whose gun he borrowed on these occasions, said there
were no bullets in the cabinet where the weapon was kept. Greene must have been shooting with
empty chambers.

When he was in high school, his parents sent him to his first psychotherapist. Others
followed. Eventually, he was declared to be suffering from manic depression, or bipolar
disorder, as it is now called, and the diagnosis stuck.
After running away from school, he was sent to London to a psychoanalyst in whose house he
lived while under treatment. After studying at Balliol College, Oxford, Greene converted to
Roman Catholicism in 1926, partly through the influence of his future wife, Vivien Dayrell-
Browning,
In 1926 he began his professional writing career as an unpaid apprentice (working in order to learn
a trade) for the Nottingham Journal, moving on later to the London Times. The experience was a
positive one for him, and he held his position as an assistant editor until the publication of his first
novel, The Man Within (1929). Here he began to develop the characteristic themes he later
pursued so effectively: betrayal, pursuit, and death.
Twelve years after Greene converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism, he published
Brighton Rock (1938), a novel with a highly dramatic and suspenseful plot full of sexual and
violent imagery that explored the interplay between abnormal behavior and morality, the quality of
good conduct.
Later life
During the years of World War II (1939–45: when Germany, Italy, and Japan fought against
France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States [from 1941 until the end of
the war]) Greene slipped out of England and went to West Africa as a secret intelligence (gathering
secret information) officer for the British government. The result, a novel called The Heart of the
Matter, appeared in 1948.
Greene produced a series of works that received praise and criticism including the Companion of
Honor award by Queen Elisabeth in 1966 and the Order of Merit, among others.
Greene died in 1991 due to an unspecified blood disease.
The world Greene’s characters inhabit is a fallen one, and the tone of his works
emphasizes the presence of evil as a palpable force. His novels display a consistent
preoccupation with sin and moral failure acted out in seedy locales characterized by
danger, violence, and physical decay. Greene’s chief concern is the moral and spiritual
struggles within individuals, but the larger political and social settings of his novels give
such conflicts an enhanced resonance. His early novels depict a shabby Depression-
stricken Europe sliding toward fascism and war, while many of his subsequent novels are
set in remote locales undergoing wars, revolutions, or other political upheavals.

Historical Context
The year 1929 brought with it the end of the Roaring Twenties, and saw the Wall Street Crash
which started a worldwide Great Depression. Globally, the Influenza Epidemic reached a large
number of people, killing a total of 200,000 in 1929. Other major events in 1929 included the
inauguration of Herbert Hoover as President of the United States, the independence of Vatican
City and the arrest of notorious gangster Al Capone.

Summary:
This story is narrated by a young boy who is observing his twin brother, Francis, as he expresses his
extreme fear of the dark. Francis tries hard to avoid attending a children's party because he knows
the plan is to play hide-and-seek in the dark. He pretends to have a cold, tells his parents and his
nanny that he does not want to go, but is forced to attend anyway.

When the lights are turned off for this game, Francis is literally scared to death. His brother tries to
comfort Francis by touching his arm, only to find that was the final unendurable anguish for his
petrified sibling. When the lights are turned back on, the adults find Francis dead.

Style of writing: The story is narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator. We can only
hear the thoughts and feelings of Peter and Francis.

Characters:
● Peter Morton: Francis’ brother, they are twins. He’s the older twin. He is very strong and
protects his brother. He and his brother are very connected and Peter feels what Francis
feels.
● Francis Morton: He is the younger twin, scared and anxious.Francis is afraid of the dark,
and he is a child who believes in God.
● Nurse: She takes care of the twins and is a good person. She is like a mother for Francis and
Peter.
● Mrs. Henne-Falcon-The woman throwing the party. She is an elegant woman and very
friendly. She is the mother of Joyce and Mabel.
● Joyce Warren: She is an eleven-year-old girl of whom Francis is afraid and wants to avoid.
Setting:
● Time – 1929-
● Place - the Morton & Henne-Falcon home

Conditions:
•Weather: Rain
•Social Conditions: "The End of the Party" is set in an upper-class environment and details the lives
of those growing up within the upper classes. We are introduced to a children's birthday party that
includes elements such as an egg and spoon race, a three-legged race and an extravagant birthday
cake. The house that the children celebrating the birthday live in is large enough for a complicated
game of hiding and go seek to take place within it.

Internal and external conflict of the story:

Francis goes through the internal conflict of being afraid of the dark and doesn’t want to attend the
birthday party due to the hide-and-seek in the dark game. He’s also afraid that the other children
would make fun of him because of it. He was previously ashamed by those children during a game,
therefore, Mrs Henne-Falcon’s party is the external conflict of the story .
Plot:
•Introduction: The two boys wake up in the room, dreading the idea of going to Mrs Henne-
Falcon’s party.
•Rising Action: Francis tries not to go to the party. He fakes a cold but the adults do not believe
it. He prays to God that his mother would listen to him, or that he would break a leg, cut himself
or catch a really bad cold for real. However, none of this happens and Francis and Peter are forced
to attend the party.
•Climax - At the party, Francis tries to be strong, and plays hide-and-seek in the dark. When the
lights are out for the game, Francis gets more frightened by the second. His brother Peter tries to
comfort Francis by touching his arm, so he searches for him and holds his hand tightly when he
finds him.
•Falling Action - Peter is concerned and worried about his brother, tells him that the lights will go
on soon. He feels his brother’s pulse and thinks he is alright.
•Resolution: The lights go on and Mrs Henne-Falcon screams, she sees Francis dead next to
Pether, who fails to realize that he mistook his own pulse and fear for his brother’s.

Themes:
- Graham Greene explores the theme of fear, conflict, connection, innocence and thinking before
you act.
Mood: Throughout the story there is a dark and gloomy mood surrounding Francis’ fears and
shame. As well as suspenseful mood as Francis dreads and suffers before going to the party and
during it. In addition to this, there is also a mood of hopefulness because Francis prays to God that
his mother would listen to him, or that he would break a leg, cut himself or catch a really bad cold
trying not to go to the party.
Symbols:
The big bird: The big bird in this case represents fear, uncertainty and darkness that Francis feels
when thinking of the hide and seek game during Mrs. Hennes-Falcon 's party.
The date "January the 5th: This date represents the connection with the past, how fast time flies by
and how many events repeat themselves sometimes. In this case, Peter Morton thinks about the
time since the last Mrs.Henne-Falcon birthday.

Literary devices used

Imagery
Example:
“Several children ran upstairs, and the lights on the top floor went out. Darkness came down like the
wings of a bat and settled on the landing. Others began to put out the lights at the edge of the hall, till
the children were all gathered in the central radiance of the chandelier, while the bats squatted
round on hooded wings and waited for that, too, to be extinguished.”
The author describes that everything moves toward the darkness of the simple game of hide-and-
seek.

Example 2:
“It was true he felt ill, a sick empty sensation in his stomach and a rapidly beating heart, but he knew
the cause was only fear, fear of the party, fear of being made to hide by himself in the dark,
uncompanioned by Peter and with no night-light to make a blessed breach.”

The author uses this literary element to describe Francis Morton´feelings about the hide-and-seek
game during the birthday party.

Allusion
Example:
“No, I'll get up," he said, and then with sudden desperation, "But I won't go to Mrs Henne-Falcon's
party. I swear on the Bible I won't."

The boy Francis used the biblical allusion to swear that he will not go to the birthday.

Flashback
Example:

“His cheeks still bore the badge of a shameful memory, of the game of hide and seek last year in the
darkened house, and of how he had screamed when Mabel Warren put her hand suddenly upon his
arm. He had not heard her coming. Their shoes never squeaked. No boards whined under the tread.
They slunk like cats on padded claws.”

The author uses a flashback to jump into an earlier time period in Peter Morton’s life about the
birthday in which Mabel Warren scared Peter by putting her hand upon Peter´s arm. It´s a vivid
memory that interrupts the chronological order to know more about Peter Morton.

Foreshadowing
Example:
- “What's the matter?"' Peter asked.
- "Oh, nothing. I don't think I'm well. I've got a cold. I oughtn't to go to the party."
- Peter was puzzled. "But Francis, is it a bad cold?"
- "It will be a bad cold if I go to the party. Perhaps I shall die."

Worry or apprehension of Francis also foreshadows. This may be shown by Francis´s words. At this
point, the reader doesn’t know what is wrong, but the author anticipates finding out.
References

● https://prezi.com/niedtqr1xfy3/the-end-of-the-party-by-graham-greene/
● http://sittingbee.com/the-end-of-the-party-graham-greene/
● https://medhum.med.nyu.edu/view/1461
● https://es.slideshare.net/ancaciga/the-endoftheparty
● https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/22/graham-greenes-dark-
heart