earticle

영어

Set in World War Ⅱ London, Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair is a novel about the love affair of two major characters, Sarah Miles and Maurice Bendrilx. Sarah is a married woman and Bendrix is a single writer. Bendrix endeavors to write a novel describing the life of the high ranking civil servant Henry, who happens to be Sarah’s husband. To this end Bendrix becomes acquainted with Sarah and the two eventually becomes lovers. Once, during one of their trysts, London is bombed by Germany and Sarah fears Bendrix to be seriously injured. She prays and vows to the Absolute that if the Absolute saved Bendrix she would end the affair and not meet him again. Bendrix survives the bombing and Sarah keeps her vow to God. In the meanwhile Sarah seeks God in spite of the suffering incurred from giving up Bendrix. In the end Bendrix too seeks God owing to Sarah’s sacrificial love for him. Through this story Graham Greene shows us that after temporary human love comes to an end, eternal spiritual love begins. That is God’s appalling strangeness of His mercy for human beings because they realize eternal love and the eternal world.