A study of sins and guilty feelings in Graham Greene's novel "The Heart of the Matter"

As human being, we sometimes feel happy and sometimes \nsad. We are happy when we get our dreams, get \nsomething from another person, and so on. But we will be \nsad if we get some problems which cannot be handled by \nourselves. In studying and analyzing a literary work, we especially students, can get some benefits, because \nliterary works contains people's values, thought, problems, \nand conflicts. Our experience also broadens and \ndeepens for literature communicates important experience. \nThe writer is interested in analyzing a novel in her \nthesis since a novel tells a long story and represents \nreal life. The writer chooses Graham Greene, one of the \nmost outstanding British novelists, is recognized by his \ncompetence to put his main characters in complicated \nsituation which make them struggle hard to survive. As a \ndevoted Catholic, he mostly involves many ideas of his \nfaith in his novels. He derives the good and evil deeds \nfrom religious view. And his preoccupation with human \nsins can be found in one of his best novels, "The Heart \nof the Matter". For those reasons, this study tries to \nanswer the questions: 1) What sins have been committed \nby the main character? 2) What result happens to the \nmain character after he has committed sins? \nTo answer those questions, a practical judicial \ncriticism is applied in this study. This criticism \nconcerns with analyzing and explaining the effects of a \nwork in terms of its subject, organization and techniques \non the critic of individual judgements. \nIn analyzing the novel, the writer reads the novel \nseveral times to comprehend the story while reading, \nshe also underscores data from the story. The forms of \nthe data can be in words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, dialogue or description. After that the writer begins to do the analysis. \nThe result of the analysis is that the main character, \nScobie, who is firstly described as a good man, at \nlast commits several sins. As a result, he feels guilty \ntowards his wife, his duty, his servant, and most of all \ntowards God. Committing those sins and having guilty \nfeelings, makes Scobie's life miserably. He can not \nshare his burden to someone else, even to his wife. \nFighting with his own conscience, he finally commits \nsuicide.