The Ministry of Fear (Book) (1943)

One of the reasons that I enjoyed The Ministry of Fear so much is because it is a novel that’s nearly impossible to categorize. Another is that the plot contains one surprise after another. It’s easier calling it simply a story about a character named Arthur Rowe who lives in London during the World War II Blitz of England by the Germans when fate brings him to the attention of a Nazi spy ring. In true noir style, the plot also gives plenty of reasons for fear and angst: Some are generally related to wartime; others come from Arthur Rowe’s personal experience.

The image of the front cover is from the first edition published in England by William Heinemann. The page references in this blog article refer to the edition from the U.S. publisher Viking Press, as noted below.

(This article about the novel The Ministry of Fear contains spoilers about both the novel and the 1944 film noir adaptation.)

I had seen the film noir based on Graham Greene’s novel several times before I read the novel. I usually prefer to read the novel first, but I don’t think it would have mattered either way because I enjoyed both the film, Ministry of Fear starring Ray Milland, and the novel. The novel might be even more noirish, but I count that as a plus.

The story in Ministry of Fear is told from the Arthur Rowe’s perspective. It puts readers in the position of identifying with Rowe, which helps to elicit their sympathy. Fate, one of the defining characteristics of noir, takes over Rowe’s life when he attends a charity fête and visits a fortune-teller. The fortune-teller mistakes his words for a secret password, and she gives him the correct guess to win the cake at the raffle stall. Rowe doesn’t know yet that the cake contains photographs the Nazis want to gain advantage in their war with England. When Rowe refuses to give up the cake and walks home with it, he is now in great danger.

This brief description of the opening of the novel may sound like the film is a close adaptation, but there are lots of differences, large and small, and I will not go into detail about those differences here. (Wikipedia includes a short comparison between the two in its entry for the novel.) Because I read the novel after seeing the film, however, I was struck by one major difference, which I think is the most important difference between the novel and the film: the amount of time that Graham Greene spends explaining Arthur Rowe’s thoughts, attitudes, and mental state.

In the novel, Rowe has already been released from psychiatric incarceration after poisoning his wife. He has been deemed unfit for military service and civilian duty in the war effort, and he is living on a government stipend. Rowe suffers from guilt over killing his wife (the implication is that he didn’t want to see her suffer, but why she was suffering or what illness she might have had is never explained completely), and the guilt seems to have had an effect that reaches far beyond simply his state of mind. The fact that he is declared unfit for military service when England is at war with Germany, that his government doesn’t trust him with a gun when it needed all the soldiers it could find, is another clue about Arthur’s state of mind.

Rowe is drawn irresistibly to the charity fête. But it’s not just fate or coincidence that draws him in. Heading toward it seems to take him back in time, all the way back to childhood:

The fête called him [Arthur Rowe] like innocence. It was entangled in childhood, with vicarage gardens, and girls in white summer frocks, and the smell of herbaceous borders, and security . . . (page 3)

This retreat into childhood is a recurring theme throughout the novel.

At the fête, Rowe visits Mrs. Bellair, the fortune-teller, and then wins the cake that gets him into so much trouble. Rowe meets Willi Hilfe and Anna Hilfe, brother and sister, when he visits the Mothers of Free Nations, the charity that sponsored the fête. He wants to know why the cake is so important that a stranger would come to his apartment looking for it and try to poison him, and part of his plan is to find Mrs. Bellair and ask her directly. Willi Hilfe offers to take him to Mrs. Bellair’s home, where they become uninvited guests at one of her séances. Rowe would rather leave, but he gives in. He meets Dr. Forester at this séance. Dr. Forester runs the second asylum that Rowe visits later in the novel because of amnesia.

Arthur Rowe survives a bomb explosion and suffers from amnesia as a result. This explosion (really an attempt on Rowe’s life) is what brings him to the asylum run by Dr. Forester. His memory comes back ever so slowly and only in fragments. One of the attendants at the asylum, Johns, is the one who explains the term (the Ministry of Fear) that Graham Greene uses for the title:

“The Germans are wonderfully thorough,” Johns said. “They did that in their own country. Card-indexed all the so-called leaders, socialites, diplomats, politicians, labour leaders, priests—and then presented the ultimatum. Everything forgiven and forgotten, or the Public Prosecutor. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’d done the same thing over here [in England]. They formed, you know, a kind of Ministry of Fear—with the most efficient under-secretaires. It isn’t only that they get a hold on certain people. It’s the general atmosphere they spread, so that you feel you can’t depend on a soul.” (pages 124–125)

When Rowe is finally aware that the asylum is run by Nazi spies, he makes his way back to London and goes straight to Scotland Yard, where he meets with Detective Prentice. Rowe becomes enthusiastic about the investigation and is happy to cooperate. He is attracted to Anna Hilfe, and he wants to impress her. He still suffers from amnesia, and he has forgotten that many are suffering because of the Nazi spies’ activities. When he and Detective Prentice go back to Dr. Forester’s asylum to pursue the spies and further the investigation, he holds a childlike view on very serious proceedings:

It was a long and gloomy ride, but all the time Rowe repressed for the sake of his companion [Detective Prentice] a sense of exhilaration: he was happily drunk with danger and action This was more like the life he had imagined years ago. He was helping in a great struggle, and when he saw Anna again he could claim to have played a part against her enemies. . . . He didn’t understand suffering because he had forgotten that he had ever suffered. (page 188)

Rowe doesn’t seem to realize yet how serious the situation has become for him and others. At the asylum, Detective Prentice and Arthur Rowe learn that Forester and Poole killed Major Stone, another patient that Rowe had befriended. The doctor’s assistant Johns shot both Dr. Forester and Poole.

At the end of the novel, when Arthur Rowe finds Anna Hilfe again, he finally starts to realize how much recent events in his life have changed him. He finally remembers that he poisoned his wife and killed her, and that Anna fell in love with him when he couldn’t remember. She may be implicated in war crimes as her brother’s partner at Mothers of Free Nations, the charity front for the spy ring. Rowe doesn’t know what Anna has done, and he doesn’t want to ask.

With all the time that Arthur and readers spend inside his head, I wondered at first if Arthur Rowe is a reliable character. Graham Greene tells the story from Rowe’s perspective, but Rowe is not the narrator. The author doesn’t allow readers to doubt Rowe or to be confused by the events relayed in the novel, even though there’s considerable uncertainty about the world Rowe lives in.

Viewers are much more sure of Stephen Neale, the main character in the film adaptation. Arthur Rowe’s dreams and instances of self-doubt are not part of the film, although these elements are common in other films noir. Psychiatric treatment or analysis is not given a large role in the film version: Neale is released from criminal psychiatric confinement after killing his wife, but his release happens at the start and is given only brief mention later in the film.

Click here for my blog article Ministry of Fear, the film that is based on Graham Greene’s The Ministry of Fear. And yes, the film and novel titles are just a shade different.

Among the many differences between the film and the novel, the biggest one is the amount of time that Graham Greene spends explaining Arthur Rowe’s thoughts, attitudes, and mental state. At the end of the novel, readers are left with Arthur Rowe and his pessimism about his future with Anna Hilfe. Stephen Neale in the film is also reunited with Carla Hilfe (her first name is different in the film), but his future is looking brighter compared to Arthur Rowe’s. Neale even makes a quick joke about cakes at weddings that closes the film.

Graham Greene apparently hated the 1944 film adaptation of his novel because it waters down the novel’s depiction of a man who poisoned his wife and suffers guilt after the murder. Maybe I would hate such a change to my work if I were the author, but I’m not the author and I have the luxury of enjoying the film just as much as the novel.

The Ministry of Fear, by Graham Greene  •  New York: Viking Press, 1943

List of main characters:

Arthur Rowe  •  Mrs. Bellairs, the fortune-teller  •  Mr. Rennit, manager of the Orthotex Detective Agency  •  Jones, employee of Orthotex Detective Agency  •  Willi Hilfe, manager of the Mothers of Free Nations in London  •  Anna Hilfe, manager of the Mothers of Free Nations in London and Willi Hilfe’s sister  •  Dr. Forester, guest at Mrs. Bellair’s séance  •  Mr. Cost, businessman and guest at Mrs. Bellair’s séance  •  Johns, attendant at Dr. Forester’s asylum  •  Major Stone, patient at Dr. Forester’s asylum  •  Detective Prentice at Scotland Yard