The Third Man

Calloway is the story’s narrator, who sets down the tale of Rollo Martins and Harry Lime. He’s a shrewd observer and at once contrasts himself with Martins’s naiveté, remarking about the severe impact that learning the truth had on Martins. Equally astute is Calloway’s sense of historical perspective, as he notes that he’s “too young” to remember Vienna when it was beautiful and recalls it only as “undignified ruins.” In addition, he asserts his own reliability, stating that he’s presenting the facts to the best of his ability.

Cynical and a bit calculating, Calloway he gets Martins drunk on purpose and doesn’t identify himself as a police officer at Lime’s first funeral. To Martins’s outrage, he remarks that Lime likely intended for Martins to be arrested for his own crimes. He casually reports which of Lime’s friends are also involved in crimes, including Cooler and his black-market tires. However, he doggedly pursues Lime, whose crime he calls a “shock,” stunning in its depravity even to him. Calloway tries, in his way, to console Martins after Lime’s death, telling him not to dwell on his actions and that he has “won.” In the end, perhaps Calloway knows his words are hollow, as he concludes the narrative with a shot of realism that reveals his grim view of humanity—and of Vienna.

Harry Lime’s neighbor, Herr Koch, is the first to inform Rollo Martins that his friend has died. He tells Martins that Lime died instantly, which contradicts the later testimony of others, who tell Rollo that Lime wanted his friend taken care of and offer him money. Martins becomes intrigued by this conflicting information and the report of a “third man” at the scene whom no one has identified. Though Koch briefly pursues the idea of Martins taking Lime’s flat and seems to welcome the prospect, he quickly becomes outraged and anxious at the suggestion that he should come forward with what he witnessed. His murder confirms Martins’s suspicions of conspiracy, and when the police consider Martins a suspect, he must turn to Calloway for support, which brings the two men into an alliance.

Though present in the narrative for only a few pages, Lime is the story’s central figure. His personality dominates the narrative and shapes the plot. A skilled criminal who uses his relief work as a cover, he has maintained his long friendship with Rollo Martins since their teenage years. Martins recalls that Lime was always better at elaborate schemes than he was, and that usually he (Martins) was the one who caused them to fail by getting caught. Lime clearly inspires loyalty in his friends and even romantic devotion in Anna Schmidt. Calloway describes Lime’s genial personality as an effective mask of his villainous intent and deeds.

Lime is an unrepentant criminal, wanted for his illegal trade in penicillin, which he dilutes and sells to hospitals to maximize his profit on a limited supply. This scheme results in the death and injury of many children, but Lime rejects the idea that his work has any “victims.” When Martins realizes that his friend Lime is remorseless, he reasons that his friend never matured to the point that he fully formed a conscience. Lime rejects the idea that individual lives have inherent value, comparing them to the people who look like “dots” from the vantage point of Vienna’s famous Ferris wheel, and claims that the great ideologies of the age merely disguise the pursuit of profit. He indicates that he tried to have Anna, his girlfriend, deported from Vienna to protect his own interests. He can’t bring himself to harm Martins, however, despite being urged to do so. Their childhood loyalty, then, is not one-sided. Lime is effectively doomed by it because he comes when Martins calls, forcing the standoff with the police in which Martins wounds and then kills him. His last words, “[b]loody fool,” are ambiguous in that it’s unclear whether they’re meant to condemn Martins, himself, or his coming death.

Anna, a young actress, is Harry Lime’s romantic partner and is devoted in her affection for him. A Hungarian refugee, Anna is cynical and often frightened. She and Martins are the only people who cry at Lime’s first funeral. Martins sees her as someone he can trust. She’s in mourning but is far less interested in talking about Lime than Martins is; when he suggests discussing Lime, she declares that she misses Lime so much she wishes she could join him in death. She raises Martins’s suspicions about Lime’s death because she helps him realize that all Lime’s close associates were present at his “death.” 

Martins begins to think he’s in love with Anna as they realize that all of Lime’s associates are lying about his death. However, he denies that her beauty is at the heart of his attraction. When they visit Herr Koch together, Anna—before Martins—realizes that something has gone wrong. She warns him that he may be in danger because of his knowledge. Anna is briefly arrested by Russian authorities because she’s in Vienna under false papers to hide from her family’s Nazi ties, but Calloway breaks her out.

Although Anna doesn’t espouse the same amorality as Lime does, she rejects Martins’s outrage over Lime’s activities just as she ridicules the idea that Martins could be in love with her. She doesn’t change her mind in response to his accusations that her love for Lime makes her somehow complicit. Instead, she laughs at Martins’s mercurial temper, calling him out for declaring his love for her yet picking a fight with her. Just as Lime rejects Martins’s morality, Anna rejects his view of romance. At Lime’s second—genuine—funeral, Calloway notes that Martins chases after her yet the two aren’t on speaking terms. No happy ending or neat resolution occurs; on the contrary, Anna’s devotion appears unchanged.

Kurtz is the first friend of Lime’s that Martins meets, after Kurtz calls the hotel to invite him to coffee. Martins is immediately suspicious of him and equates his toupee with a tendency to be “phony.” Kurtz pretends to be a fan of Martins’s fiction and tries to dissuade him from any investigation to exonerate Lime, calling it “very unwise.”

On a later visit, Martins realizes that the toupee is a ruse: Kurtz is not bald. When he remarks about this, he’s “astonished” to see the look of rage on Kurtz’s face. He asks Kurtz to pass on a message to Lime, ignoring Kurtz’s protestations that contacting a dead man is impossible. Kurtz passes on the message, which results in Martins and Lime’s finally meeting at the Prater Ferris Wheel. However, Kurtz’s angry expression indicates that he may be just as dangerous as Lime—and indeed, Martins learns that Kurtz tried to persuade Lime to kill him, to no avail.

Harry Lime’s personal physician and one of the witnesses to his first “death,” Dr. Winkler is reticent and uncooperative, saying as little as possible about the events. His main personality trait is religious devotion, and his home is full of Christian devotional artifacts. Martins notices that one of his crucifixes is unconventional, as Christ’s arms are upright. Winkler indicates that this is proof among Calvinist-leaning Catholics that salvation is predestined, which Martins and Calloway don’t analyze further. Greene likely included this in his narrative to enhance its intrigue by raising questions of moral responsibility and free will, since Protestant doctrines of salvation by faith contrast with the Catholic insistence on salvation through both faith and upright deeds. Winkler is present when Martins visits Kurtz to contact Lime—but doesn’t speak, which may indicate a reluctance the other conspirators don’t share. However, like the nature of Winkler’s religiosity and his ties to Lime, this remains unexplained.

British Cultural Relations Society bureaucrat Mr. Crabbin is described as a heavy man with a receding hairline and thick horn-rimmed glasses. Because Martins identified himself as “Dexter” for the flight manifest, answering to his pen name of Buck Dexter, Crabbin mistakes him for a more famous writer, Benjamin Dexter, whom Crabbin has booked for a literary event at the institute. Keen for a free hotel room, Martins doesn’t correct the mistake, and a comedy of errors ensues.

Shocked to see that Dexter (Martins) has been in a fight, Crabbin also seems surprised to learn he’s a friend of Harry Lime’s and is interested in Westerns. His disillusionment is particularly acute when he fetches Martins for the literary engagement, and Martins struggles to answer audience questions about literary giants like Virginia Woolf and Henry James. By this time, Martins is distracted by the prospect that he may soon face arrest for Herr Koch’s murder. Crabbin attempts to cover for his guest, begging for his cooperation.

Apparently, Crabbin never fully realizes his error, as Calloway reports at the end of the story that Crabbin still seeks reimbursement for Benjamin Dexter’s expenses, disputing that the author was in Stockholm on the days in question. Calloway feels sorry for him, although Martins shows no regret or regard for the young man’s discomfiture or his lost funds.