Novel: The End of the Affair

Overview

Graham Greene's The End of the Affair is a compact, intense novel about love, jealousy and the tangled relations between human passion and religious faith. Narrated by Maurice Bendrix, a cynical novelist, the book traces his obsessive recollection of an affair with Sarah Miles and the spiritual consequences that follow when that affair ends abruptly. Set in London during and after the Second World War, the story combines a private melodrama with wider questions about grace, sacrifice and the nature of belief.

Plot

Maurice Bendrix recounts his passionate affair with Sarah Miles, who is married to the stolid civil servant Henry Miles. Their relationship is torrid and secret, but one day Sarah suddenly breaks it off without explanation. Consumed by jealousy and suspicion, Bendrix embarks on an investigation into what has happened, hiring a private detective and piecing together the months that follow. He discovers that Sarah's life takes on a new intensity grounded in prayer and silence, and that her renunciation of their love is bound up with a vow made in the face of wartime terror. The narrative moves between Bendrix's bitter inquiry, flashbacks to the affair, and the slow revelation of Sarah's inward transformation. The story reaches a wrenching climax when the reasons for her decision and the consequences of her faith are laid bare, forcing Bendrix to confront both love and the existence of God.

Major Characters

Maurice Bendrix is the novel's conflicted narrator: a man of fierce intelligence and wounded pride whose atheism is tested by events he neither understands nor can control. Sarah Miles is complex and morally ambiguous, at once sensual and spiritual; her choices are decisive and enigmatic, and her inner life becomes the pivot of the novel. Henry Miles, quietly devout and practical, stands as the husband whose survival and ordinary goodness provoke Sarah's vow. Peripheral figures, including the private detective who stalks the truth, contribute to the atmosphere of surveillance and suspicion that surrounds the central triangle.

Themes

Love in Greene's novel is neither sentimental nor simple; it is portrayed as a force that can be jealous, destructive and redemptive. Jealousy drives Bendrix's actions and shapes his narrative voice, creating a tension between selfish desire and the moral claims of others. Faith and doubt are held in uneasy proximity: Sarah's turn to prayer introduces the question of divine intervention and moral obligation, while Bendrix's struggle to accept that God might exist, or that God might demand sacrifice, becomes a moral and emotional battleground. The novel explores whether love requires ownership or whether true love can coexist with generosity and sacrifice.

Style and Tone

Greene's prose is spare, urgent and intimate, often read aloud by Bendrix as if to justify or indict himself. The book's structure, alternating confession with investigative reporting, produces a claustrophobic intensity that mirrors the narrator's obsession. Moral ambiguity permeates the tone: few characters are portrayed as wholly good or evil, and moments of tenderness are shaded by irony and regret.

Impact

The End of the Affair remains one of Greene's most personal and widely read novels, admired for its emotional honesty and philosophical weight. Its probing of how love and faith can hurt one another, and how personal vows can have public consequences, continues to resonate, offering no easy answers but insisting on the cost of human attachment.