Castle’s facade of placid reliability is anman of divided loyalties and intensenhatreds. When Castle did field work innSouth Africa, he learned to loathe thengovernment of apartheid there, whichnmade his love for Sarah, a black and hisnfuture wife, a crime. Their escape fromnSouth Africa was aided by the Communists.nA mixture of gratitude to his benefactors,nas well as powerful antipathyntoward his own country which supportsnthe South African regime, turns Castleninto a double agent for the Soviets, tonwhom he feeds top secret informationnpertaining to British involvement innSouth Africa.nV^astle can be associated with othernanti-establishment figures canonized byntoday’s liberal image makers. In point ofnfact, he is of the same fabric as DanielnEllsberg and even John Dean, who pitnthemselves against the decision-makingnpowers to make what they consider shorttermnbetrayals for the long-term good.nBeing ideologically motivated is enoughnto exonerate them in the eyes of contemporarynassessors. By many standardsnthese days. Castle is a virtuous man, sincenthe South African government is in thenliberal consciousness an unallayed Evilnand his own country he betrays is comprisednof expedient murderers, accordingnto his experience. Greene’s position onnthis seems clear enough.nHowever, as an impressively talentednwriter with a subtlety of approach toncharacter and circumstance, Greenennever used to be at ease with such anblack and white evaluation of complexnmatters as betrayal and guilt. They arensubjects he has frequently explored, withnconsiderably more depth in other novelsnthan in this one. His “whiskey priest” innThe Power and the Glory is torn by twonobsessions: his awareness of his sinfulnessnand his overpowering urge to transcendnhis frailties and become a martyr.nIt is a monumental struggle. In The Heartnof the Matter, Deputy CommissionernScobie, perhaps Greene’s most humanencharacter, betrays his faith with the bestnof intentions: pity for those around him.nTorn asunder by love and compassion,nhe destroys himself in the eyes of hisnChurch by false communion and suicidendisguised as natural death.nTherefore, what surprises in ThenHuman Factor is that the tension betweenntransgression and consciencenseems curiously absent in Castle. Greenendoes not present him racked by guilt, notneven when Davis, the wrong man, isnkilled because of Castle’s sabotage. Thenresponsibility, suggests Greene, is totallynthat of his British employers. Even thenCommunists are blameless compared tonthe British. As Castle confides to Sarah:n”When people talk about Prague andnBudapest and how you can’t find a humannface in communism I stay silent. BecausenI’ve seen—once—the human face. I saynto myself that if it hadn’t been for Carson,nSam would have been born in a prisonnand you would probably have died in one.nOne kind of Communism—or Communist-savednyou and Sam.” This kind ofnargument—which Greene never refutesnby presenting any example of circumstancento the contrary—is as morallynlogical and defensible as is endorsing thenpolicies of Nazism because of one decentnSS officer. It is also obvious to the readernunimpaired by political prejudice thatnSarah’s and Castle’s rescue in Sowetonwas motivated more by politics than bynaltruism: the help extended to them bynrighteous Communists is calculated tonbring dividends. Castle is thus a dupe, anmanipulated character, and is consequentlynlacking in the stature necessarynto make any of Greene’s ideological ornliterary points. Our sympathy for andninterest in him therefore becomes tepidnand perfunctory, more an obligationnextorted by the narrator than a genuinensympathy generated by the story itself.nCastle does not make a wrong existentialnchoice: it makes him. His treachery isninsistingly presented as due to his intensenlove for his wife facilitated by the author’snobviously unfair treatment of other considerations.nFrom the very beginning allnhis actions are geared toward their beingntogether—very understandable from thenemotional perspective, but hardly sufficientnjustification to betray his countrynnnwithout putting such a decision into anlarger human context. He is not evenntoo successful in carrying out his personalngoals, ending up behind the Iron Curtainnwjth little hope of ever seeing Sarahnagain. The only judgment Greene doesnpass on his protagonist is that Castle is anpitiful bungler—another exercise in literarynunfairness as it is Greene’s ideologicalnpreferences that make him a contemptiblenloser. When Castle sensesnthings closing in on him and is pressurednto bail out, he sends his wife away andnthen must get rid of the family dog. Hendispatches the animal with a pistol, butnlater learns that it wasn’t killed instantly,nthat it lingered for hours in agony. Thengood intentions—hatred of tyranny, lovenfor his wife, pity for animal and humannsuffering—that motivate Castle pave thenway to a hell of death, betrayalnand isolation.nV^astle is disturbingly unaware of thenimplications of his behavior. Whennthanked by a British Communist for allnthat he has done for the Party he protests,n”I’ve helped you over Africa, that’s all.”nDon’t they—Castle and Greene—realizenthat there is no such thing as “that’s all”nin this situation, that such a positionneven if based on ignorance, is morallynand pragmatically inexcusable and untenable.^nThe old “domino theory” ofnspheres of influence applies here as well:nit takes very little imagination to connectnthe triumph of Communist forces innAfrica with the struggle of Soviet dissidents,na fact of life intrinsic to the verynactuality which we can no longer ignore.nBy writing a book—even under the guisenof an “entertainment”—that sympathizesnwith and thus gives tacit approval, evennan underhanded glamor, to the “undeserved”nmiseries and modern dramaticsnof Castle’s lot, and at the same time notnclearly pointing out the political andnmoral consequences of such behavior,nGreene casts serious doubt on his positionnas a serious contender for the NobelnPrize. Even though so many voices allnover the world have long expressed surprisenthat he has not yet been honorednwith it. Dn9nChronicles of Culturen