Novel: England Made Me

Plot
A directionless young Englishman, Anthony Farrant, drifts into a job with a wealthy Swedish businessman, Krogh, whose enterprises straddle banking, shipping and murky international deals. Anthony is initially drawn by the promise of steady work and the exotic distance of Stockholm, but he gradually learns that Krogh's success rests on ruthless self-interest, manipulation and a willingness to bend legality and morality. As Anthony becomes more deeply involved, personal loyalties and professional compromises collide, and the easy certainties of home and national identity begin to unravel.
Tension grows as the consequences of association with Krogh mount: ethical lines are crossed, private betrayals emerge and Anthony's passive temperament leaves him ill-equipped to resist or redeem the situation. The narrative follows the slow corrosion of character and conviction, tracing the way small concessions accumulate until escape or repair becomes difficult. The ending retains an uneasy ambivalence about culpability, fate and whether moral recovery remains possible after compromise.

Main characters
Anthony Farrant is the novel's central figure, an Englishman whose upbringing and assumptions about decency and honor are tested by the demands of a harsher, more transactional world. He is neither heroic nor a conventional villain; his weakness and indecision make him a study in how ordinary people can be swept into corruption without dramatic malice.
Krogh, the Swedish businessman, embodies worldly success and moral indifference. Charismatic where necessary and coldly pragmatic where it serves him, he represents the modern, utilitarian ethos that prizes power and stability over scruple. Other characters orbit these two men, figures of intimacy, ambition and rivalry who illuminate different facets of compromise and allegiance.

Themes and style
Moral ambiguity and the corrosive effects of compromise are central themes. The title itself, "England Made Me," signals an ironic meditation on national character and personal formation: the novel asks whether one's origins inoculate against moral erosion or simply supply a veneer that can be stripped away. Greene probes how economic modernity and international commerce warp traditional values, and he shows how psychological inertia can be as culpable as active wrongdoing.
Stylistically, the prose is spare, wry and quietly severe, combining realist detail with bleak psychological insight. Greene's early talent for creating morally complex, unsentimental portraits of human weakness is on display: scenes of social choreography and business negotiation double as moral testing grounds. The tone is cool rather than melodramatic, often letting small gestures and silences carry the weight of judgment.

Reception and legacy
Published in 1935 and released in the United States as "The Shipwreck," the novel occupies a place among Greene's early, shaping explorations of conscience, betrayal and the ambiguities of modern life. It helped to establish themes that would recur throughout his career, moral compromise, exile, and the clash between private loyalty and public expediency, while also marking a shift toward a darker, more ironic social realism.
Continued interest in the book rests on its tight moral focus and its study of complicity in a changing world. Readers and critics value its psychological acuity, its understated critique of modern capitalism, and its reminder that personal history and national myths can both protect and blind a person when circumstances demand harder choices.