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Author:
Graham Greene was born in 1904 and educated at Bekhamsted School. After he studied at Balliol College in Oxford, he worked for four years as a sub - editor on The Times. He established his reputation with his fourth novel, Stamboul Train. In 1935 he made a journey across Liberia, described in Journey Without Maps, and on his return was appointed 0film critic of the Spectator. In 1926 he had received into the Roman Catholic Church and was commissioned to visit Mexico in 1938 and report on the religious persecution there. As a result he wrote The Lawless Roads and later, The Power and the Glory. Brighton Rock was published in 1938 and in 1940 he became literary editor of the Spectator. The next year he undertook work for the Foreign Office and was sent out to Sierra Leone in 1941 - 43. One of his major post-war novels, The Heart of the Matter, is set in West Africa. This was followed by The End of the Affair, The Quiet American, a story set in Vietnam, Our Man in Havana, and a Burnt-Out Case. The Comedians and twelve other novels have been filmed, plus two of short stories, and the third man was written as a film-treatment. In 1967 he published a collection of short stories under the title: May we Borrow Your Husband? His latest publication is Travels With My Aunt. Overall he has written some thirty novels, "entertainments", plays, children's books, travel books, and collections of essays and short stories. He was made a Companion Of Honour in 1966.
Wormold, an Englishman, is vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana. He has been living there for a while- he met and married a catholic girl there but who left him for an American. He is now short of money because his daughter Milly had reached an expensive age. She has an expensive taste and lately began to go out with Captain Segura. So the high salary offered by Hawthorne, a British Secret Service agent persuaded him to become spy for M.I.6 in Havana. Now Wormold can afford all things Milly want. He starts to fool London; he pretends to recruit sub-agents and invents a story about a military construction. HQ thinks of 59200/5 as a very capable man, so they sent him a secretary and an assistant accountant called Beatrice and Rudy. The situation begins to be uncomfortable for Wormold. He is in habit of drawing expenses for his fake sub-agents Cifuentes, Professor Sanchez and himself. He also invented two other agents, the drunken Cuban air-pilot Raul, and Teresa, a nude dancer. Beatrice begins to suspect that Wormold is not telling the truth, but she does not inform the Secret Service because she is in love with him. When Wormold is asked by London to send photographs of the military installations, he cables that Raul will fly over the secret constructions if paid a lot of money. Unfortunately there is really such a pilot named Raul, and the "other side" stages a motor accident in order to warn him. But the man is killed. Wormold's old friend Dr. Hasselbacher, a German who fought in the First World War and afterwards came to Cuba is now also working for the "other side" after the ruin of all his experiments. They have been destroyed because of his relationship to Wormold - they had been friends for fifteen years, meeting everyday for a drink in the shabby Wonder - Bar. When Wormold hears that Engineer Cifuentes has been shot at, he realizes that his joke had become deadly and he decides with Beatrice to warn his other invented agents, Professor Sanchez and the dancer. After they have really found a girl named Teresa at the Shanghai Theatre, they drive to Professor Sanchez's house. He tries to warn him, but the Professor thinks that he was sent by his wife to threaten him. Having only confused everyone, there is nothing for Wormold left to do but go. But when he gets back to the car, all three are taken to the police station where Wormold is interrogated about his strange actions by Captain Segura. Wormold insists that he knows nothing about a man called Raul, and after Segura has warned him he lets him go. The Chief in London realizes that their man in Havana is having a difficult time and that the other side is very active, Hawthorne is ordered to warn him, and so they meet in Jamaica. "They" will probably try to poison him at the annual lunch of the European Traders' Association. Hasselbacher admits to Wormold that he works for the "others" and warns him, but Wormold attends it. He suddenly recognizes that Carter's voice (he pretends to be also a salesman for vacuum cleaners) is the same from the tape Wormold was played at the police during his interrogation which was a record of a telephone call Hasselbacher received and which informed him about Rauls' death. So when Carter offers him a whisky, he gives some to the dog under the table which dies instantly. Later Wormold has to identify the dead body of Hasselbacher- he has been shot in the Wonder - Bar by Carter. Wormold manages to make Segura drunk and steals his gun, then he takes Carter for a drive and finally kills him. Later, the British Ambassador tells him to go home to Britain because Segura had complained about him causing so much trouble. Back in England Wormold is surprised not to be punished as expected but receiving a job on the training staff and a decoration, the O. B. E. Wormold wants to marry Beatrice, but because of his catholic daughter Milly and because he and Beatrice have been married before he is not able to do so.
Interpretation:
The author makes fun of the secret service and shows how it can be fooled easily.
Characters:
Wormold is a typical anti-hero, weak-willed with guilty-feelings, for his daughter but also for enemy spies who murder his friends.
Milly, his daughter is brought up very catholic, so morality is very important for her. Despite that she has a very expensive taste, but she does not want her father pay for her so much.
Beatrice does not like her work in the Secret Service because she is not very patriotic and she does not believe in her chiefs when they say they want peace and justice and freedom. But she has to work there because she has left her husband whom she no longer loves. She fell in love with Wormold when they met, and so she does not deceive him though she suspects him of telling false stories.
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