The book starts off pretty simple, but after the first twenty pages it turns into a mess. We start looking at Mr. Tench's life. This man is a dentist that has left the United States or United Kingdom (not quite sure) and is residing in Mexico City. Tench is not a wealthy dentist and it seems that he's not a very good one either. The story begins by explaining that Mr. Tench is waiting for a boat to leave home and while he's waiting he meets a weird man that the reader knows as the stranger. This 'stranger' seems to be hiding from someone or something because he's always looking around, impatient and has the characteristics of a fugitive. "Somebody knocked on the door. The stranger slipped the attaché case under his chair, and Mr Tench went cautiously up towards the window. 'Can't be too careful,' he said. 'Any dentist who's worth the name has enemies.' A faint voice implored them, 'A friend,' and Mr Tench opened up. Immediately the sun came in like a white-hot bar. A child stood in the doorway asking for a doctor. He wore stamped and whistled on the hot beaten road. Mr Tench said he was not a doctor: he was a dentist. Looking round he saw the stranger crouched in the rocking-chair, gazing with an effect of prayer, entreaty...The child said there was a new doctor in town: the old one had fever and wouldn't stir (The Power & The Glory, Chapter I, pg. 16)." One can notice that this stranger has a deep secret. Later on in the book we start to notice that the Governor and the police are looking for a priest, so it makes one think that maybe the stranger is the man there looking for. There are wide variety of things that occur that make one believe that this stranger is being followed by the police and/or country.
The connection that I decided to make this time was with the stranger that Mr. Tench meets. This man reminded me of a movie I once saw with Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. In Collateral, Tom Cruise acts as Vincent a contract killer that gets into Jamie Foxx's characters cab. Max (Foxx), gets involved in Vincents killing streak and the police starts to look for Max thinking he's Vincent. It's a whole conflict between these two characters because Max is trying to escape because he knows that after Vincent finishes the job he'll kill him. The whole plot of the movie is how Max feels like a run away that is trying to escape from his prosecutor. In the novel, one can also see how this stranger is trying to escape from someone. Further along the book we get the feeling that the government is looking for him. It all seems to fall upon this character that up until now we know nothing, except for the fact that he seems to be running away or hiding from someone. If the stranger is a priest he would be hunted down by the government because during this period anybody who believed in God was punished. "The lieutenant sat down upon his bed and began to take off his boots. It was the hour of prayer. Black-beetles exploded against the walls like crackers. More than a dozen crawled over the tiles with injured wings. It infuriated him to think that there were still people in the state who believed in a loving and merciful God. There are mystics who are said yo have experienced God directly. He was a mystic, too, and what he had experienced was vacancy -a complete certainty in the existence of a dying, cooling world, of human beings who had evolved from animals for no purpose at all. He knew (The Power & The Glory, Chapter 2, pg.24-25)." This desire to run away is what makes the movie and novel connect.
The connection that I decided to make this time was with the stranger that Mr. Tench meets. This man reminded me of a movie I once saw with Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. In Collateral, Tom Cruise acts as Vincent a contract killer that gets into Jamie Foxx's characters cab. Max (Foxx), gets involved in Vincents killing streak and the police starts to look for Max thinking he's Vincent. It's a whole conflict between these two characters because Max is trying to escape because he knows that after Vincent finishes the job he'll kill him. The whole plot of the movie is how Max feels like a run away that is trying to escape from his prosecutor. In the novel, one can also see how this stranger is trying to escape from someone. Further along the book we get the feeling that the government is looking for him. It all seems to fall upon this character that up until now we know nothing, except for the fact that he seems to be running away or hiding from someone. If the stranger is a priest he would be hunted down by the government because during this period anybody who believed in God was punished. "The lieutenant sat down upon his bed and began to take off his boots. It was the hour of prayer. Black-beetles exploded against the walls like crackers. More than a dozen crawled over the tiles with injured wings. It infuriated him to think that there were still people in the state who believed in a loving and merciful God. There are mystics who are said yo have experienced God directly. He was a mystic, too, and what he had experienced was vacancy -a complete certainty in the existence of a dying, cooling world, of human beings who had evolved from animals for no purpose at all. He knew (The Power & The Glory, Chapter 2, pg.24-25)." This desire to run away is what makes the movie and novel connect.
- Who is the stranger?
-Did Tench get on the boat?
- Why is the government looking for priests?
- Will the church leave Mexico?
- What impotance does Father Miguel Cerra have in the book?
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