The Hint of an Explanation by Graham Greene
"The Hint of an Explanation" by Graham Greene is a thought-provoking narrative that unfolds during a train journey from Scotland to England. The story revolves around an unnamed narrator who encounters a fellow traveler named David. Through David's recounting of a childhood incident involving a menacing baker named Blacker, themes of faith, temptation, and the complexities of belief are explored. David's experience with Blacker, who embodies a formidable antagonism towards faith, catalyzes a transformative understanding of his own religious identity.
As David faces the moral dilemma of whether to turn over a consecrated communion host to Blacker, he ultimately swallows it, which marks a significant moment of personal revelation and resistance against evil. This act shifts Blacker from a fearsome figure to a more human and pitiable character, further complicating the notion of good and evil. The story juxtaposes the narrator's skepticism about God against David's ironic journey towards faith, leaving readers to ponder the nature of belief and the profound impact of formative experiences on one's spiritual journey. The nuanced interplay between innocence, evil, and the search for meaning invites reflection on the complexities of faith and the mysteries that often accompany it.
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The Hint of an Explanation by Graham Greene
First published: 1949
Type of plot: Psychological
Time of work: December, 1948
Locale: A train traveling from Scotland to England
Principal Characters:
The unnamed narrator , an agnostic taking a train rideDavid , another traveler on the trainBlacker , the atheistic baker recalled from David's childhood
The Story
On a long train journey from Scotland to England, the unnamed narrator listens to another traveler, a man named David, tell about an incident in his childhood that gave him a hint of an explanation about God's mysterious ways. The narrator (who resembles Graham Greene during his agnostic days at Oxford University) says that he has a certain intuition, which he does not trust, founded as it is on childish experiences and needs, that God exists, and that he is surprised occasionally into belief by the extraordinary coincidences that people encounter in life, like leopard traps in the jungle. He is, however, intellectually revolted by the notion of a God "who can abandon his creatures to the enormities of Free Will." The skeptical narrator is a perfect audience for David's ironic story of religious faith, for the story itself is structured like a providential trap.
David's tale has some of the features of a fairy tale: An innocent boy heroically overpowers a threatening monster and is rewarded for his bravery with a happy life. A terrifying character named Blacker, a baker by trade, bribed the ten-year-old David with an electric train set if he would bring him the communion host. To enhance his control over the boy, Blacker showed him a razor that he kept to bleed people. Obsessed with his atheism, Blacker wanted to examine the host to prove once and for all that Christ's body and blood are not present in the communion wafer. He told the boy, "I want to see what your God tastes like." David recalls that when Blacker asserted that he wanted to get one of those consecrated hosts in his mouth, for the first time the idea of transubstantiation lodged in his mind, for he was in the presence of a man who looked on the idea with a deadly seriousness.
According to David, Blacker was seeking revenge on the Catholics of the town, all of whom refused to patronize his store; on David's father, a banker who may have had dealings with Blacker; and on God himself. Driven by his fear of Blacker, David went to communion and lodged the host under his tongue. When he was alone, he wrapped the host in a piece of newspaper and carried it home so that he could give it to Blacker the next day.
Through Blacker's obsession, the boy realized for the first time that the host involves something special: "I knew that this which I had beside my bed was something of infinite value—something a man would pay for with his whole peace of mind, something that was so hated one could love it as one loves an outcast or bullied child." No longer viewing the host as part of a mechanical religious routine, David began to sense the power of God and grow firm in his resistance to temptation and fear. The overwhelming presence of Blacker and the evil he represented was diminished in that illuminating moment. At the last minute, David swallowed the host instead of turning it over to Blacker.
Then something happened, David recalls, which seemed more terrible to him than Blacker's desire to corrupt or his own thoughtless act: Blacker began to weep. The powerful image of evil and corruption was suddenly rendered human and pathetic in the boy's eyes. As Blacker transformed from a monster to a pathetic human being, David's unexamined life as a Catholic began to change into a life of service to God.
After David finishes his story, the narrator glimpses a priest's collar beneath his overcoat. David's earlier remark about the hint of an explanation suddenly makes sense to the narrator. Filled with hatred and finally with the anguish of frustration, the demonic Blacker led the indifferent boy into the powerful mysteries of his own religion. When the narrator suggests that David must owe a lot to Blacker, David replies, "Yes. You see, I am a very happy man."