Burned Out Case

The Burnt out Case Essay
The Burnt out Case poses many questions for the audience to ask themselves. One that I found very important was: Is success equivalent to happiness? Querry, the main character of the book, probably asked himself that very question many times throughout his life. For most of his life, Querry worked hard for things that he thought would make him happy, but in the end he ended up miserable and completely lost his passion for life. He wanted to serve a meaningful life, which was what made him decide to go to Africa. His major goal was to feel like he had accomplished something meaningful before his death. He completely removed himself from anything customary in his life. The Burnt out Case forces you to question yourself

The must have been hard to give up the life you had lived for more than half of your life. Even so, he felt as if those years of success meant nothing. To him, unlike many others, his life was meaningless. One of the many who worshipped Querry was Mr. Ryker. He, along with many others, believed that Querry was an amazing man who loved God and was a good Christian man. They thought that because he was famous and successful. Success is sometimes associated with benevolence, and no matter how many times Querry told them that he was not a good man, they would not believe him. “The truth is always forgotten.” (Greene, pg.106) Querry had not believed in a God for large portion of his life, and it infuriated him that people believed said and thought that he was a highly religious man. As a child, Querry had believed in God mostly because his parents had believed in God. As he grew older, Querry began to try to rationalize and come up with scientific proof that there was a God. “Of Course there were his parent’s stories, they proved nothing. They might have been old wives’ tales… He proved that the King existed by historical, logical, philosophical and etymological methods.”(Greene, pg. 154) Day by day he began to lose faith and eventually he lost it all together. He still designed churches, while beautiful buildings, he left out things like crosses and stained glass windows

His life shows us that it’s not all about success in life, because success doesn’t always mean bliss. It can leave you feeling empty and like your life was insignificant. Life isn’t about how much money you have or how many people “love” you. It’s if you can say you are content with it. How many real friends you had, or if you can say “I’m proud of my time on this earth.” Querry didn’t feel he could say any of those particular phrases, and chose to do something about it. That is an important lesson to learn before it’s too late to change, because it was almost too late for