Alpha, the Moralist Summary and Analysis

In the people's democracies, an individual's fate depends on how well he conforms to the Method and Party doctrine. Milosz used as an example a friend of his, a writer whom he calls Alpha, whose main interest was tragic moral conflicts. Alpha sought for purity in his writing as a counter-balance to the disorder in his life. His novel brought him acclaim as the most gifted Catholic writer in Poland, and he received a national award and large sum of money for it. In spite of his success, Alpha felt there was something wrong with his writing. He did not feel he was truly a Catholic writer.

When WWII began, Poland was a part of the Nazi empire. An underground developed for literature written in the country's own language. Alpha followed the rules of the regime and...