Bellow, Saul. "Looking for Mr. Green".

Summary

The story is set in Chicago in the depressed 1930s. The third-person narrative follows George Grebe, a thirty-five-year-old lecturer of classical languages, in his new job of delivering relief checks to disabled people in the black district. Grebe comes from a poor family. His father sent him to study chemical engineering but when he died, Grebe changed for Latin. He has experienced bad luck in his life. The Depression reduced him to a series of odd jobs as a salesman and it took him long to find the job at the relief office through the assistance of a friend. His superior, the young Mr Raynor, has a diploma in law and all he gets is few dollars more for his wage than Grebe. The lives of both have been negatively affected by the crisis.

Grebe’s first interview with his supervisor is interrupted by an uproar in the office caused by the poor woman Staika. She was born in the States to immigrants from the East. She has no other means to support herself and her six children than to donor her blood at hospitals in exchange for money. She came to the relief office to protest. The relief will not pay her electric bill, so she brought her ironing board to the office to use their current. She did not fail to call reporters. She does not lie about her impoverished circumstances, but she follows her own goal by so publishing her suffering. She even seems to enjoy her dramatic performance.

Grebe is thankful for his new job and wants to do his best, though his supervisor practically told him that he is neither required nor expected to work very hard. The greatest difficulty in Grebe’s job is finding the people whom the checks are addressed. As a white stranger he is suspicious in the black district where the people would not tell anyone anything. It is a chilly late November day and Grebe cannot find Mr Tulliver Green. He inquires of a nearby grocer, the janitor of the building where Mr Green is supposed to live, and several neighbours. He has difficulties in convincing people that he is not a cop or bill collector and that he only wants to deliver a check.

Grebe is sorry that he did not study the files of the people so that he would at least know something about them which would help him find them. When he asked Mr Raynor about it, the supervisor made it obvious that he does not think it necessary to know anything about the people. The district where Grebe finds himself is a maze of half-collapsed houses, dark small yards, and dirty allies. The apartments are often crowded with as many as twenty people who sometimes even use the beds in shifts. As Grebe learns from an Italian grocer, it is a place where people do all kinds of crimes and abominations without even police being able to stop them from it.

Grebe puts Mr Green’s check aside and starts looking for Mr Winston Field instead. He succeeds and finds an old naval in a wheelchair. The man lives in a dark back-yard bungalow with a twelve-year-old boy. He procures a box with papers verifying his identity and his title for the relief money. He misses company, so he tells Grebe his plan how to improve the conditions of black people. He realizes that it is money only that matters, so he suggests creating black millionaires by subscription and contributions. When Grebe leaves him, his shift ends but he cannot go home without delivering one more check, the one for Mr Green.

He inquires once again in the house. He thinks how ironic it is that he cannot find a man whom he wants to give something. He guesses that if he were to deliver him bad news, for instance, he would find him in no time. He wonders what it is good for to have a name by which a man cannot be found. Finally one neighbour gives him a tip and he finds an old house with the mailbox bearing the name Green. He rings the bell happily but is shocked when a stark naked drunk woman opens the door. The woman does not identify herself positively but Grebe is convinced that Mr Green is in the house, probably naked and drunk, too. He gives the woman the check and leaves with a feeling of satisfaction that Mr Green after all could be found.

Analysis

The story is told by a third-person narrator who has access to Grebe’s consciousness. It is introduced by the motto ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might...’, which well characterizes the main theme.

The protagonist is an ordinary man whose one extraordinary quality is the energy with which he is ready to apply himself in his job. His devotion does not bring him any tangible profit, quite the contrary, it causes some embarrassing moments. He must press complete strangers to tell him if they know about Mr Green, finally he must even confront a naked drunk woman.

Grebe’s serious attitude to his job strikingly contrasts to the lax approach of Mr Raynor. Grebe’s earnestness also contrasts to the low-life environment in which he finds himself and to the background of the Great Depression during which money mattered even more than in any other period. Grebe resists to corruption and his reward is the feeling of deep satisfaction which he experiences in the conclusion of the story.