Third Man - Is There a Hero?

In The three Man, Graham Greene gives expression to his impatience with the refrigerating War politics of the time by refusing to take an ideological stance on either side. Instead, he offers a mimicry of the Cold War, as Rollo Martins turns octogenarian Vienna into the American Old West in his search for the killers of his hero, Harry Lime. Heroes and hero pietism are parodied in The Third Man. The closest Greene comes to the impersonation of a hero is in the character, Anna. The depiction of weak heroes, harmonised villains and heroic women confronts the dominant, mainstream ideology of the era, which was represented in an extreme lay down in popular literature such as westerns.

Rollo Martins is visualised as a writer of westerns who appears to perceive others, and himself, in scathe of the values of his novellettes. Sentiments expressed by Martins lead Calloway to comment that Martins expressions healthful like a cheap novellette (Greene, 1988, p.25). When Martins fights for the honour of his dead adorer, he positions Calloway as a sheriff instead of a policeman. I deem to call them (policemen) sheriffs (p.26). Martins mentions his book the Lone Rider of Santa Fe doubly (p.25 and p.32) and describes the plot of the story.



A lone rider whose best friend was shot unlawfully by a sheriff, hunts the sheriff down. His perception of himself as one of the heroes in his westerns is confirmed when he states that he is gunning on the button the same way for Colonel Callaghan (misspelling the policemans name) (p.32).

The emphasis on westerns in The Third Man provides an oblique reference to the Cold War. A dominant theme of westerns is the dispute of East and West - or, more precisely, the conflict between the values symbolised by the East.. and the those symbolised by the West (Meyer, 1974. P.668/26). In his comparison of the writing of two popular western writers, B.M. Bowers and Wister, Meyer comments on their opposing treatment of the theme of...If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com



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