Graham Greene’s “The Power and the Glory” is based upon “less than two months spent in Mexico in March and April of 1938,incuding five weeks of grueling, solitary travel in the southern provinces of Tabasco and Chiapas.” John Updike asserts “There is something about the Roman Catholicism which infuses with it Manichaean darkness and tortured literalism .”

There is the conflict between idealism and practicality as echoed here as by the lieutenant and the Priest who are diametric opposites. The Lieutenant aims at an ideal republic devoid of all corrupt institutions such as religion, and does not bother about the means as long as the end is reached. His totalitarian regime practises his own version of socialism to breed a better future for the generations to come in terms of equality and tolerance in the state. Though, his version of idealism remains an unrealizable paradigm. Paradoxically, in his coercive stance, life becomes meaningless as echoed in his act of crushing an insect ruthlessly as he did with human life. The Lieutenant reminds one of The Wisest Fool or Tughlaq in Girish Karnad’s play Tughlaq who adopted impractical means such as the shifting of the capital from Delhi to Daulatabad to achieve his goal, and implements ruthless measures to attain his ultimate vision.…