The Third Man

Graham Greene’s Vienna exists in the shadow of war. Even the setting is gray and depressing. Lime’s supposed burial at the first funeral occurs on a frozen day, so cold that even digging a grave is difficult, and Calloway calls it a “smashed dreary city” (2). The characters’ relative cynicism matches the city’s gloom. None of Lime’s Vienna friends share Martins’s alarm that Lime may have been involved in corrupt activity. Kurtz tells Martins that in everyone in Vienna is involved in crime due to the nature of the occupation, and Anna Schmidt similarly declares that “everyone’s in a racket” (24), though she eventually takes more of an interest in what Martins finds out. For Anna, deception is a survival mechanism, as she lives in Vienna under false papers, fearing deportation to Hungary for her family’s Nazi ties. Unlike the other characters, she’s remarkably forthright and consistent in her views: Her love for Lime never waivers, even when she finds out the depths of his deception. Perhaps significantly, no one in the story regards her as a particularly skillful actress: Like her identity documents, her performance skills are unconvincing.