Depopulating the Common: Reading The End of the Affair

Abstract

Critics have often supported their canonical readings of The End of the Affair by suggesting that Greene and the novel’s narrator, the popular writer Maurice Bendrix, are doppelgangers. Michael Shelden, for instance, describes Bendrix as a ‘lonely man who shares his creator’s dedication to writing:

Regardless of what is happening in his personal life, he can turn out 500 words a day and finish a novel in a year or two. When he is not writing, he is tortured by emotions that he cannot control, and is driven to hurt others for no logical reason. He broods about the past and is amazed by Sarah’s ability to live completely in the present. Her beauty and candour fascinate him, but he also feels intimidated by her …. His sexual feelings are usually aroused by the sense that he is somehow superior to the other person.¹