Unraveling Graham Greene: Marlowe, Peter Pan, Harry Lime

Introduction

While I was reading the Chapter fourteen, I stumbled over this quote. It confused me, and I lost the thread of the Chapter. Who is Marlowe and why is the author talking about his devils? What does he mean by Marlowe’s devils wore squibs attached to their tails? Why is eternal youth so horrible that it makes Peter Pan evil? And what does Peter Pan even have to do with all of this?

Decoding Graham Greene

So, my research showed that the author was talking about the poet Christopher Marlowe, who wrote the tragic history of Doctor Faustus. So, I tried to find the scene, he was talking about. A Stranger helped me out and told me where exactly I could find it. Therefore, if I believe the Stranger the author must be referring to act 3, Scene 4 of the written drama. But even after I read that exact scene it still didn’t make any sense to me. There were no squibs in that exact context and referring to his devils didn’t make sense either because in that scene there was only one devil and it was a woman. That’s why I believe that Graham Greene either changed the scene so that it fits for him or he mixed up several scenes together. After all it seems to be a meaningless sentence in this chapter, but I just refuse to believe that after all I read in this book.

Peter Pan's Parallels: Hero or Evil

And on the other hand, Peter Pan was still a problem. As far as I can remember Peter Pan was far from being evil, he was more like a little hero. That’s why I don’t think the author meant to say Peter Pan is evil, he just wanted to let us know that Peter Pan does the same thing as the evil. They both provide eternal youth. After I thought about it for some time, some of it started to make sense or at least I thought so.

An example of this speculation is Harry. Young Harry had fatuous ideas just like ways to get out at night. It’s something teenagers just do, and it is all right because they are young, but the Older Harry still has the same insane Ideas just like the young one. An Example would be that Harry made everyone believe that he is dead. So, with that, we clearly see the childish and immature actions. And because in this book there is no Peter Pan to bring eternal youth to Harry, he got that gift because he is evil. And considering all the facts, he indeed seems to be exactly that. Maybe this is just a way to prepare us for something that is going to happen next. Something that would show the real evil of Harry Lime.