Exile Essay
AP Literature
Exile Essay
Edward Said has asserted that “exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience.” There is a unison that merges a human to a physical or emotional place that is known to them as their “true home.” Home does not necessarily have to refer to a physical place, for it can be a character’s “birthplace, family, homeland,” or basically any place that has sentimental value to the individual. In “The Power and the Glory” by Graham Greene, the protagonist endures exile and it leads him to a certain satisfaction that could not have come without having been exiled. The Whiskey Priest was exiled from his very religion and his profession when Mexico decided to persecute Catholicism. Although he was not the perfect priest before, the feeling of alienation must have come along with his necessity of having to constantly flee from the government. The priest’s alcoholism and illegitimate daughter already make him different from anyone else that followed the practice, and when he is the last person trying to preserve the Catholic fate, the burden seems all the heavier to bear. He gets captured and thrown in jail whilst trying to help someone in need, and this is where the exile becomes the most alienating.
Being the last priest, he obviously feels isolated, and the fact that he has already committed so much sin does not help the situation. Waiting for his death to come, the Father starts feeling worthless because he was the last strand of hope for Catholicism, and he felt as if he had failed and that he wasn’t what the world needed or deserved. This is when the Father seems most humble. He doesn’t give himself the credit he deserves from trying to preserve the faith with all the deeds he had done through the persecution. His experience with exile had him feeling alienated whenever he was the last priest left, and it was obviously difficult doing the “little things” he had done to help others during the time like hearing
Exile Essay
Edward Said has asserted that “exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience.” There is a unison that merges a human to a physical or emotional place that is known to them as their “true home.” Home does not necessarily have to refer to a physical place, for it can be a character’s “birthplace, family, homeland,” or basically any place that has sentimental value to the individual. In “The Power and the Glory” by Graham Greene, the protagonist endures exile and it leads him to a certain satisfaction that could not have come without having been exiled. The Whiskey Priest was exiled from his very religion and his profession when Mexico decided to persecute Catholicism. Although he was not the perfect priest before, the feeling of alienation must have come along with his necessity of having to constantly flee from the government. The priest’s alcoholism and illegitimate daughter already make him different from anyone else that followed the practice, and when he is the last person trying to preserve the Catholic fate, the burden seems all the heavier to bear. He gets captured and thrown in jail whilst trying to help someone in need, and this is where the exile becomes the most alienating.
Being the last priest, he obviously feels isolated, and the fact that he has already committed so much sin does not help the situation. Waiting for his death to come, the Father starts feeling worthless because he was the last strand of hope for Catholicism, and he felt as if he had failed and that he wasn’t what the world needed or deserved. This is when the Father seems most humble. He doesn’t give himself the credit he deserves from trying to preserve the faith with all the deeds he had done through the persecution. His experience with exile had him feeling alienated whenever he was the last priest left, and it was obviously difficult doing the “little things” he had done to help others during the time like hearing