Discuss
The Power and the Glory as a Psychological Novel.
The
Psychological Novel is a term to describe that kind of fiction which is for the
most part concerned with the spiritual, emotional and mental lives of the
characters and with the analysis of character rather than with the plot and the
action. Psychological Novel enabled the writer to bring the reader into direct
touch with all that was going on inside the mind of the protagonist. Those who
used this technique believed that our consciousness is a part of our soul and
does not proceed coherently or logically. In Psychological Novel, time is made
insignificant and it compels the novelist to minimize plot and to eliminate
action completely. It also necessitates the absence of the elaborate
description of characters by describing their individual appearances, gestures.
Plot, action, characters and thought are drowned in the stream of
consciousness. Only consciousness remains- bottomless and endless. The
beginnings of the Psychological Novel may be traced to Richardson in the 18th
century. His Clarissa offered him a
great scope for profound and microscopic insight into the workings of emotion.
Psychological novel came in to existence on the eve of 1st world
war. Psychological novel are called the novel of the “stream of consciousness”
or the novel of subjectivity or the novel of interior monologue. It flourished
under the influence of psychologists and philosopher such as William James and
Sigmund Freud and Bergson.Confirming
to the tradition of psychological novel Greene’s The Power and the Glory
manifests a tendency to present a slice of life in a serious of flashes,
instead of bringing scenes as the
highlights of a logically developed story in a psychological order.
