Summary: Symbolism Of The Lieutenant In The Trenches

The Lieutenant is an angry character in which anger is presented. The lieutenant is completely angry from the church and priests and Greene is expresses his anger through criticizing the church. Girard says "Numerous voices in the novel castigate the church… The lieutenant, for instance, deplores the shallowness of the priest's faith, the weakness of their flesh, their deception of population, the ignorance of the people are kept in, and the way the church adds the misery of peasants" and that is clear through the lieutenant who thinks that priests lives in wealth and have a comfort life and lift people live in poverty and misery. They were collecting their money from the poor workers and labors of the plantation not for the church, but

There are so many symbols used from the beginning of the novel till the end. As an explanation to this, the priest himself is a symbol of religion who believes that real power and glory is in heaven not on earth. The priest is nameless as if he wants to generalize the moral that can be delivered through him. The lieutenant is a symbol of the evil and the anger of the world who thinks that religion is a weakness and the real power and glory is to be the strongest one on earth. The book of martyrs was also a symbol which foretelling that the priest is going to suffer and to be killed. the brandy was symbol of the desire of the priest to escape from himself, his state, and his world. The white rose which became red because of the blood of the bird in part one chapter one is symbol of the peaceful society of Mexico which became full of bloodshed and dead people because of religious persecution. Children are symbol of the future. When they kill children, they kill their future as well and when children lose their faith in god like the child who helped the priest in part one that symbolizes the loss of faith in the future. The dying child whom the priest found with his mother in part three represents the future which bleeds and is on his way to