Practicalities on the Composition of the Research Paper “Issues of Existential Christology in Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory”

Abstract

Preparing a research paper involves both joys and sorrows. It is a very serious thing with plenty of heartburns attached to it. To make a frank confession as a research scholar I took long six months to compose my paper “Issues of Existential Christology in Graham Greene"s The Power and the Glory”. It means the scholar has to read between the lines before he or she entertains any idea of composing a research paper. The scholar has to pass through many agonising moments in the course of his or her composition. However, when the paper is published in a good journal of repute, the joy it gives is incomparable. In this paper I wish to present before you my agony and ecstasy of the practicalities on the composition of the paper in reference. I would like to state at the outset that there is no substitute to reading. In other words, the first priority of a research scholar should be reading, reading and reading. A research paper has to present an idea in convincing terms without deviating from its focus. A research scholar should never boast; he/she should always think that he/she knows only very little. The moment he/she thinks that he/she knows something, the scholar is lost. However, I must state here that I have read some five novels of Greene, and of all these novels, the one that went heady to my heart was The Power and the Glory. I read it three times. I think to write a research paper, one has to read the primary source at least three times. I took existentialism as a philosophical tool for my first PhD programme on Arthur Miller. So I went through Kierkegaard"s Either/Or and John Macquarrie"s Existentialism, to name a few texts of repute. I also went through the writings of Sartre. The ideas I had gained on existentialism came to my help to take my next step, construction of the theory--Existential Christology. My familiarity with the Gospels of the New Testament enabled me to define Existential Christology. My Sunday School exposure in my boyhood days and my attending the Church service on Sundays and my keen listening to the messages delivered by missionaries on the electronic media helped me define Existential Christology. It goes as follows: Existential Christology, among other things, highlights the Messiah"s passion, his being betrayed for a pittance of thirty pieces of silver, the anguish of his soul especially when he was „deserted" even by his Father in heaven, his trials with their false witnesses, his agony in Gethsemane, his enemy"s hunt after his soul, the rising of unjust witnesses against him, his flagellation, the gathering together of scourges upon him, his crucifixion, his lamentations etc. My familiarity with Apostle Paul"s Epistles and his passionate ministry in the good old days helped me delineate the essence of Christ. In this paper I have made an attempt to re-state how I composed my research paper Issues of Existential Christology in Greene’s The Power and the Glory.