More Than Scraps

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This dissertation examines numerous short stories by Graham Greene, the British writer who considered himself first and foremost a novelist rather than a writer of short fiction. Specifically, it uses the twelve stories that make up his final collection, The Last Word and Other Stories, to launch an investigation into several other stories of his from various phases of his career. The twelve tales from Greene's last book represent six distinct time periods in the writer's life: the early 1920s when he was a university student, 1929 when he became a professional fiction writer, the late 1930s after he traveled to Mexico, the early years of the Second World War, the mid-1950s, and the 1980s through 1990, which was the final decade of his life. This project examines not only those twelve stories, but the other stories--and sometimes novels, nonfiction works, and drama--Greene wrote during the same time frames. The results of this study reveal that Greene's short stories are far from the "scraps" he once considered them to be. Rather, taken together, the works from these six time periods reveal an intricate web of ideas, themes, and explorations that are significant to Greene's entire career. As early as his teens, Greene was fascinated with the disillusionment of innocent characters and played with orthodox Christian theology. As a young writer in 1929, he shows his life-long fixation with betrayal. His interest in crossing borders and British protagonists abroad can be found in his stories of the 1930s as in several of his novels. The war years find Greene questioning easy notions of patriotism while also shining a spotlight on the home front during the war. Many of the tales from the 1950s highlight Greene's sense of humor and his willingness to face threats to Western civilization with a smirk. Finally, the stories from Greene's final years generally reflect on the often problematic nature of memory and on death, an aspect of life Greene addresses again and again throughout his works. This dissertation argues that Greene's short fiction throughout his life can be an important way to understand his chief concerns.