Reading Group Guide for Greene
Questions for Discussing Graham Greene’s Novel The End of the Affair
Six questions for reading groups to use when discussing Graham Greene's novel The End of the Affair.
1.) Hatred seems to work on the same glands as love: it even produces the same actions. If we had not been taught how to interpret the story of the Passion, would we have been able to say from their actions alone whether it was the jealous Judas or the cowardly Peter who loved Christ? (27).
Obviously, we’ve been given insight into Bendrix’s motives and the condition of his heart (although our insight isn’t omniscient since we are only told what Bendrix wants us to know). However, if we were viewing his relationship with Henry and Sarah how would we interpret his behavior?
2.) The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us: we lose our identity (47).
How does this statement by Bendrix reflect on society’s need for constant ‘happiness?’ What kind of happiness does it describe? What light does it shed on Christian suffering? What does it say about individualism?
3.) Eternity is said not to be an extension of time but an absence of time, and sometimes it seemed to me that her abandonment touched that strange mathematical point of endlessness, a point with no width, occupying no space (50).
The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience, which our Enemy has of reality of whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered to them. C.S. Lewis
The Screwtape Letters (1942) and The End of the Affair (1951) were written in relatively close proximity to each other. Both Greene and Lewis write compelling comments on the relationship of time and eternity. How do these two quotes relate? Do you agree that those who are fully in the moment are closest to understanding eternity? Have you ever been fully in the moment? Can you share a time you were fully in the moment?
4.) I have never understood why people who can swallow the enormous improbability of a personal God boggle at a personal Devil. (59)
How do you understand Bendrix’s personal demon? Is it a guardian demon like we have a guardian angel or is it something like a personal relationship with Jesus? Do you think Greene is right or wrong?
5.) If I stopped loving him, I would cease to believe in his love. If I loved God, then I would believe in His love for me. It's not enough to need it. We have to love first, and I don't know how. But I need it , how I need it. (91-92)
Why do you think Bendrix insisted on hating God? What would happen if Bendrix ceased to hate God?
6.) I thought I am kissing pain and pain belongs to You as happiness never does. I love You in Your pain. I could almost taste metal and salt in the skin, and I thought, How good you are. You might have killed us with happiness, but You let us be with You in pain. (122)
Were we allowed to be with Christ in His pain or did He choose to join us in our pain? What is the benefit of pain?
Greene, Graham. The End of the Affair. Penguin Books, 1999. ISBN 0-14-029109-1
