Both Greene's whiskey priest and O'Connor's preacher Asa Hawks have illegitmate daughters, recalling another famous literary minister with an illegitmate daughter--Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter. There seem to be many similarities between the realtionships of Dimmesdale and Pearl and the whiskey priest and his daughter Briggita. The whiskey priest wants to escape to a safe place so he can confess his sin to another priest, but he wonders what good is in confessing when you love the result of your sin. Dimmesdale experiences the same feelings of guilt and love for his child. Their feelings about their daughters really shape their actions for the entire story. While the whiskey priest is driven to confess, Dimmesdale resists confessing until the moment of his death. Dimmesdale gets to confess to everyone, while the whiskey priest dies without confessing. I think Hawthorne and Greene are both asking important questions about religion by using ministers set in a societyin which religion is very important. What is the effect of their sin on the men's eternal souls? Is there something about their love for their daughters that has a redemptive power? In Hawthorne, we see that although Dimmesdale dies, his confession changes his daughter, and she is able to live a happy life. We get no such assurance in Greene, who provides a less hopeful ending. The fate of the whiskey priest's soul is uncertain, and we are left to wonder if the love he had for his daughter left the same kind of redemptive mark for Brigitta. In contrast, Asa Hawks appears to not care about his illegitimate daughter at all, finally abandoning her in hopes that she will live with Hazel Motes. Asa Hawks' faith is ruined. His ability to believe, to be honest, to love is probably gone as well. It is interesting to think about how these Christian authors use the character of the illegitimate daughter to develop the character of the minister father.

Satan in Milton and Lewis

In the article we read by Dr. Stutz, he argues that Milton's Satan is not a grotesque, diabolical Satan, something that C.S. Lewis corrected in his retelling of Paradise Lost. A long-standing critique of Milton's Satan is that he is too heroic, too easy to sympathize with--he is to some an admirable rebel. Lewis found fault with this portrayal of the devil and fashioned his "Unman" accordingly. However, I would suggest that Milton's Satan, although he is eloquent and beautiful at first, does in fact undergo a slow transformation through the epic until he does end as the sort of grotesque monster that Stutz thinks is not really present in Milton. In the poem, Satan takes on the forms of different animals, and he feels degraded. By the end of the epic, Satan returns to Pandemonium to tell the demons about his victory, and instead of cheers, he hears a collective "hiss." All the demons, including Satan, have turned into snakes. While Stutz writes that Milton does not emply grotesque images of the diabolical, Milton chooses for Satan to end as a grotesque monster. If you look carefully for the slow transformation, you will see that the Satan of Paradise Lost is not so heroic after all.

Pretending to be an Athiest to Catch an Athiest who is not an Athiest

The men of the week are pretending to be someone they are not to catch someone they don't understand. The jist of what they are doing sounds pretty simple, going undercover to capture the criminal, but it is because they assume it's that simple that they do not understand the 'criminal', who is no criminal at all but the fulfiller of their purpose. So by having the someone they don't understand tell them to be someone they are not so they can catch the person they don't understand, they then finally find who they really are.

I love Random Characters named after days of the week...

In Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, the characters are wonderful. I love how ridiculously the "anarchists" are described. They have such distorted features and some seem almost freakish looking. The men have crazy habits, nervous jitters and most appear to be in constant state paranoia. The group lacks any notion of sanity, and agrees to crazy plans. At one point the plan to blow up an important official, just because. The men are constantly suspicious that one of the group is a spy, but in reality, they are all spies... I love the irony that Chesterton uses in his work. The "mastermind", Sunday, keeps things in a constant state of confusion, and quite seems to enjoy his game. One of the funniest parts of this story is the scene in which Thursday is being followed by Friday. Isn't Chesterton great? Friday is described as a feeble old man that everyone is expecting to die any day, yet he follows and then chases Thursday all over the city. I truly think that this was my favorite piece of literature from this semester.

1420 in the Shire

To give a quick recap of the ending of The Return of the King, they return, find out Solomon has taken over, the hobbits form a little hobbit army and battle and kick him and his men out. However, Solomon has already done his damage by destroying all the trees and such. At this point, and this is what I want to talk about, Sam takes the soil that the Lady of the Woods had given him as a gift to restore the Shire back to its original state. Sam put a little here and a little there and tossed the rest into the air and let it do its work. He also planted the seed that was given to him of one of the elven trees to replace the big tree in the party field. The effect of this was astounding. Not only was the Shire restored, but was better, more beautiful than before with a gorgeous elven tree in the middle, which brough visitors to it from far away. It has given the Shire a beginning of a golden age, a new beginning, not only a restoration but better. This is the first visual sign that I can think of of the actual proof of the success and growth of the new ruling under man, but not just under man but under man with an alliance and friendship of the elves and dwarves and others. The whole thing just caps off the good ending with the notion that more good things and more growth and beauty will come with the defeat of Sauron and the King Aragorn.

Biblical Names in Wise Blood

Just two that I know of.

Enoch Emery - Enoch, father of Methuselah

Genesis 5:4 - Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.

Asa Hawks - King Asa of Judah

1 Kings 15:9 - In the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa began to reign over Judah.

Creating His Own Wise Blood

Enoch Emery claims that he has wise blood, a sort of feeling or something that tells him or lets him know when something is about to happen and such. His wise blood tells him that he is going to find the person that day to who he can show the little mummy thing to. And sure enough, Hazel Motes comes on by and that is the answer that the wise blood was giving him. But it could simply be that Enoch wanted it to be that day and that anyone he recognized he would take to be that person, such as Haze. But we can't really say this or that about the wise blood at that point. However, there is one big problem with the wise blood of Enoch which is that it told him something huge, something big, something that would make him important would come out of him giving the little mummy thing to Haze for his new Jesus. The problem comes in when the mummy is just tossed around and thrown out. Nothing comes out of what the wise blood says, so is the wise blood really wise, is it dumb, or is it simply non-existent? But I guess, I'm just wondering why does he think he has wise blood? In the past there must have been things like the day at the zoo when Hazel Motes came to the zoo just when Enoch was expecting someone to come. But it doesn't have to be anything supernatural. It could be just that the other days when Enoch was really wanting to show somebody and nobody came, he just shrugged it off and forgot it. Or maybe he finally really wanted to show somebody because he finally had someone to show it to and it just so happened when he was itching to show it and had Hazel in his mind, that Hazel did come and credit was given to the wise blood. Similar things might have happened in the past. He subconsciously creates situations that are likely to happen, but he consciously doesn't realize it, and when the situations come to pass, credit is given to his wise blood. Enoch may have always thought, even if just as a small, reoccurring though, that if he was to give someone the mummy, that he would naturally be rewarded. This thought slowly grew in the back of his mind, getting bigger and bigger, and when he finally had someone to give it to, his subconscious thought came to his mind, he expected to recieve a reward, but by this time the reward had grown to an uplifting of himself to some great importance, not even directly by the man he gave it to, but by just happening, and again giving credit to the wise blood.