"The roof couldn't keep out this rain." (p. 152) "Hope is an instinct only the reasoning human mind can kill. An animal never knows despair." -Graham Greene, "" (p. 141) In Graham Greene's , setting is essential in understanding the spiritual conquest of the main character. The story takes place in post-revolution Mexico of the nineteen-thirties, where Catholicism has been banned. The government has shut down all of the churches and established anti-Catholic laws, jealous of the rising power of the church, and nervous of the corrupt ways in w ....