A Burnt-Out Case Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Christine De Vinne

SOURCE: "Truth and Falsehood in the Metaphors of A Burnt-Out Case," in English Studies. Vol. 74, No. 5, October, 1993, pp. 445-50.

In the following essay, De Vinne discusses the metaphorical significance of children and childhood in A Burnt-Out Case. According to De Vinne, "childhood corresponds with falsehood while adulthood symbolizes truth" in the novel.

A Burnt-Out Case is Graham Greene's narrative of a disillusioned architect who seeks spiritual and emotional peace among burnt-out lepers deep in the Congo. There, in a primitive world far removed from the distractions of civilization, its characters confront the essential questions of life. The rhetoric of the novel too is stripped of anything extraneous; Greene makes clear that the story is based on two simple, straightforward metaphors. The first and most obvious establishes leprosy as a symbol of the disillusionment from which Querry suffers. Like a leper whose disease has spent itself after eating...
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