Graham Greene recovering the religious element, the awareness of the drama of the struggle in the soul that carries the permanent consequence of salvation or damnation, and of the ultimate metaphysical realities of good and evil, sin and divine grace, could the novel recover its dramatic power. Suffering and unhappiness are omnipresent in the world Greene depicts; and Catholicism is presented against a background of unvarying human evil, sin, and doubt. V. S. Pritchett praised Greene as the first English novelist since Henry James to present, and grapple with, the reality of evil. Greene concentrated on portraying the characters' internal lives –
The Last Word (Greene short story) The Last Word (Greene short story) "The Last Word" is a short story by author Graham Greene, written in 1988 (see 1988 in literature). It first appeared in "The Independent" but can also be found in collections of his short fiction, notably the Penguin edition of "The Last Word and Other Stories", for which it is the lead story. The story, written toward the end of Greene's life, reflects his frustration at the declining influence of religion, particularly Catholicism, in the modern world. The story revolves around the last pope, John XXIX, who was overthrown more than twenty years earlier