Henry Graham Greene was born on 2 October 1904 in Berkhamsted in England and was
one of six children. At the age of eight he went to the Berkhamsted school. As a
teenager he was under so immense pressure that he got psychological problems and
suffered a nervous breakdown. In 1922 he was enrolled on the Balliol College,
Oxford and in 1926 after graduation he started to work for the London Times as
sub-editor and for the Nottingham Journal as journalist, where he met his later
wife Vivien Dayrell-Browning. In February 1926 before marring his wife he was
received into the Roman Catholic Church, which had influenced him and his
writings. In 1929 his first novel The Man Within was published, but his
popularity wasn´t sealed before Stamboul Train (Orient Express) was published
in 1932. In 1935 he became the house film critic for The Spectator. In 1938 he
published Brighton Rock and wrote The Lawless Roads and The Power and the Glory.
In 1941 within the World War Two he began to spy voluntarily for the British
Foreign Office in Sierra Leone and resigned in 1943 because of being accused of
collusion and traitorous activities that never substantiated. He spent the rest
of the war travelling widely and produced on his experiences he made The Heart
of the Matter in 1948. In 1950 The Third Man was published which was written as
a film treatment. So the book became famous after the movie had been released in
1949 and Greene states: “The Third Man was never to be read but only to be
seen“. In 1975 he separated from his wife and on 3 April 1991 he died in Vevey,
Switzerland. The novel Main Characters Rollo Martins alias Buck Dexter, English
author of cheap westerns Harry Lime, old school friend and idol of Martins
Colonel Calloway, English police officer and observer narrator Anna Schmidt,
actress and Lime’s girl-friend, feigns to be Austrian but is Hungarian Dr.
Winkler, Lime’s doctor and present doctor at the accident Colonel Cooler, a
friend of Lime Herr Koch, Lime’s caretaker and witness of Lime’s accident
Plot Rollo Martins travels after the World War II to the into four zones divided
Vienna to visit his old school friend Harry Lime, who had invited him to Austria
to report on international refugees. When arriving, Martins finds out that his
friend was run over by car and died. At Lime’s funeral he meets Colonel
Calloway who states that Lime was the worst racketeer in Vienna who would have
been arrested if he had not been killed. At a literary discussion he starts his
own inquiry at first with Kurtz who explains the accident but Martins is not
satisfied, he thinks Lime was murdered. Visiting Schmidt, she tells the same as
Cooler did, but mentions that even the driver was a friend of Lime. After that,
he visits the doctor to question him, but gets no information. At Lime’s
apartment he meets Koch who reveals that he is a witness who did not give
evidence. He claims that there was a third man whom he could not identify.
Cooler also tells the same story as Kurtz and askes him about the third man, but
he has not seen a third man. Schmidt and he decide to question Koch again. As
they arrived, Koch was murdered. After this Calloway makes an inquiry about
Cooler, Kurtz, Dr. Winkler and Koch. Martins tells him about the third man, then
Calloway informs him about Lime’s rackets: In those days, only military
hospitals were supplied with Penicilin in Austria. As a result Penicillin was
stolen and sold to Australian doctors for much money. The consequences were that
it causes venereal diseases and meningitis. Then he showed evidences that Lime,
Kurtz, Cooler, Winkler and Harbin were involved. So Martins gets disillusioned
and disappointed about Lime and he wants to leave Vienna, but he cannot because
of the Austrian police. Both think that Kurtz or third man killed Lime, so he
tries to find third man. After the inquiry he visits Schmidt and tells her all
about Lime and as leaving her, he meets the third man who is Lime. He pursues
him to an iron kiosk where he vauished, so he informs Calloway. In the meantime
Schmidt was to be arrested by the four powers because of her papers. Martins and
Calloway find a door in the kiosk with stairs to the sewer system, which was
used for smuggling. Knowing that Lime is alive, Martins makes an appointment
with him at the Prater´s Great Wheel where he realises that Lime’s character
totally changed, that he became a man with no scruples anymore, that he betrays
and uses persons, but that he still has certain principles. At Calloway`s
office, he is informed that Harbin was in Limes´s coffin and that Winkler and
Cooler will be arrested, but not Lime and Kurtz. Martin makes another
appointment with Lime. At the meeting, Lime realises the trap and flees. The
police and Martins persecutes him through the sewer system and in the end
Martins wounds and shoots Lime. Intention: The novel is about friendship and
betrayal. Martins betrays Lime and Lime betrays Schmidt and himself, only
Schmidt remains loyal. The characters also use each other, so that there cannot
be a happy ending. The “good“ Martin is assimilated in the end to the
“evil“ Lime, because even the good is responsible for the death of three
persons and maybe in the end Martins sees Lime as a rival against Schmidt,
because throughout the book Schmidt loves Lime but not Martins. The
investigation of the protagonist does not find an individual culprit, but
reveals political crimes in which children the victims are.