flannery o'connor's good man in marilynne robinson's gilead and home

Christianity and Literature Vol. 59, No.2 (Winler 2010)

Finding Flannery O'Connor's "Good Man}} in Marilynne Robinson's Gilead and Home

Susan Petit

Marilynne Robinson's novel Gilead is a rich study of the need for forgiveness and the power of grace. It can also be called, in Rebecca M. Painter's words, a "novelized treatise on the difficulty of lived virtue" (95).1 This novel-in itself but especially as seen in the light of Home-gradually reveals how the elderly John Ames, who appears at first to be simply a devout and kindly Congregationalist minister. has sinned against his namesake. John Ames Boughton, known as Jack.2 In the course of the novel Ames confronts his decades-long rejection of Jack and finally forgives, accepts. and even comes to love him.

One way to understand Ames' spiri tual journey and Jack's existenti al questioning is through the lens of Flannery O'Connor's ''A Good Man Is Hard to Find." It seems natural to associate these two writers whose work reflects their Christ ian faiths. Robinson is a permanent faculty member of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, of which O'Connor is probably the most famous alumna, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux publishes both authors. Yet the serious but sympathetic approach of Robinson, a northerner and a Congregational ist, 10 her subject is very different from O'Connor's, which relies on caricature and satire. Robinson even claims that "the influence of Flannery O'Connor has been particularly destructive" by leading readers not to expect "serious fic tion to treat religiOUS thought respectfully" ("A World of Beautiful Souls"). O'Connor communicated her Catholic vision by using "the grotesque as a primary way to reach the unbelieving reader" (Hawkins 28); in contrast, in these two novels Robinson shows thoughtful people in ordinary situations worki ng their way to greater receptivity to grace through follOWing both Calvin's teachings and their own charitable inclinations. As Robinson says, Ames' faith is "not dogmatic but a process" (Interview Part II with Silverblatt). 1

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Regardless of whether Robinson intended Gilead as a response to ''1\ Good Man;' it acts as one by usinga similar structure and parallel characters, while showing them in a more sympathetic. warmer way. The conventionally good characters, the grandmother and Ames, dominate the first half of each and control the information-the grandmother is the viewpoint character for most ofO'Cannor's story, which is written in indirect free discourse, and Ames is the novel's narrator-so that readers distrust the Misfit and Jack before they appear. These two new characters then engage in debate about Christianity with the initial characters. The resemblance between the works is brought out by strong echoes of O'Connor's story in the passage in which Ames calls Jack a good man. In the story, the grandmother tells the Misfit, "I just know you're a good mall," and he replies, "Nome, I ain't a good man ... but I ain't the worst in the world neither" ( 139). Near the end of Gilead Ames writes that he told Jack, " ... You are a good man,' and he gave me a look, purely appraising, and laughed and said, 'You can take my word for it, Reverend, there are worse' " (23 1). Similarly, when Jack tells Glory what Ames has said, she responds, "Well, I could have told you you are a good man. I've said it in so many words, surely;' and he replies self-deprecatingly, "You're a miserable judge of character. Mine, especially. No objectivity at all" (Home 308-09). Gilead climaxes in Ames' acceptance of Jack much as O'Connor's ''A Good Man" exists for the moment when the grandmother realizes her connection 10 the Misfit.

Both O'Connor and Robinson want readers to sympathize with their miscreants and to believe in the possibility of their salvation. O'Connor wrote that she hoped Ihal the grandmother's gesture would grow "like the mustard-seed" in the Misfit's heart and turn him into "the prophet he was meant to become" ("O n Her Own Work" 113). Robinson, Similarly, wants her readers to see Jack's goodness, "th e greatest goodness [being] perhaps the awareness of one's own failure to be good" (Interview Part II with Silverblatt), a failure which is inevitable because of man's fallen condition. She points out Ihal "life makes goodness much easier for some people than for others" (Death of Adam 156),4 and since life has made "goodness" especially difficult for Jack, his failures presumably should be particularly forgivable. Robinson clarifies how she sees Jack by saying that she wrote Home because she "couldn't leave the Gilead character ofJack alone: ... 'I'm fond of him. I didn't want 10 make Jack a good man in a conventional sense. I wanted to make him a person of value in terms of the whole complexity of his life: [I] wanted to see him redeemed" (Appleyard).

FINDING O'CONNOR'S "GOOD MAN" 303

One must take "redeemed" here in its theological sense, for she has compared Jack, with his history of theft, to the thief on the cross whom Jesus saves. She says that one can "think of Jesus' response as esthetic: this man bas done a beautiful thing" by showing concern for Jesus in the midst of his own agony (Interview Part II with Silverblatt). Glory evokes this comparison elliptically as Jack is preparing to leave Gilead: "Sweet Jesus, she thought, love this thief, too" (Home 3\5). Jack's greatest Ubeautiful" action this summer has been accepting so many painful humiliations in his attempt to see if he can provide a home for his mixed-race family in Iowa, where he and Della cou ld Illarry legally, even as this goal seems less and less attainable.

Close consideration shows many important parallels between the grandmother and Ames on the one hand and the Misfit and Jack on the other. The grandmother and Ames are similar in their casual racism, their selfishness, and their hypocrisy, but also in their basic goodheartedness, though unlike the grandmother Ames is thoughtful and devout. Jack resembles the Misfit as a man alienated from ordinary society> and a spiritual seeker, but he differs because he cares about others and is kind and thoughtful. His long history with Ames is also different frolll the Misfit's brief encounter with the grandmother. Another important difference is how they respond to offered love: the Misfit kills the grandmother, bUI Jack accepts Ames' blessing. This difference, as will become clear, makes Robinson's hopes for Jack more plausible than O'Connor's for the Misfit.

The grandmother's racism seems typical for her time and place. Georgia in the 1 950s; she uses the words "pickaninny" (O'Connor. "A Good Man" 131) and "nigger" (131, 132), but there is no conscious malice in her comments, which even reflect some understanding of economics: "Little niggers in the count ry don't have things like we do" (131). An incidental matter in the story, racism is a key theme in Gilead because Jack, Della, and their son Robert have suffered directly as a result of it; laws in Missouri have prevented Jack and Della both from marrying and from living together legally. Ames, whose views reflect much of 1956 northern White America, is not an overt racist, but for most of the novel he is indifferent to the fact that Gilead has driven out its Black residents, although it was founded by abolitionists like his own grandfather as part of the Underground Railroad to smuggle slaves from the Kansas Territory into Iowa in the 1850s and to serve as a haven for abolitionists like John Brown. In the 1890s there had been an arson "at the Negro church" (36) which Ames thinks of as


only a "nuisance fire" (231), while "some years" before the novel's action, the few African American families stilt in Gilead moved to Chicago (171), presumably because they were made to feel unwelcome. Ames' indifference shows in his account of their departure: "1 didn't know the Negro pastor well myself, but he said his father knew my grandfather. He told me they were sorry to leave, because this town had once meant a great deal to them" (36-37).

Jack tries to learn Ames' views on race by pointing oul a statement in a magazine article that ''Americans' treatment of the Negro indicated a lack of religious seriousness" (147). In Gilead Ames does not say that he responded, but in Home he agrees with Jack that White Americans' treatment of Blacks does not meet "Christ ian standards" (Home 217), after which everyone drops the subject. Only after learning about Jack's interracial family does Ames regret that the town has not lived up to its abolitionist past, that it is no longer a place where "a harmless life could be lived ... unmolested" (242). So racism, which is just touched on in ''A Good Man;' is a central concern in Gilead, and Ames' acceptance of Della and Robert and his shame at the sort of place Gilead has become are signs of his spiritual growth.

Both the grandmother and Ames are sel f-centered despite their religious convictions. The grandmother, a "hypocritical old soul" (O'Connor, "On Her Own Work" 111 ), manipulates her son Bailey into driving on an unmaintained country road, and her hiding her cat in the car helps cause the accident which results in the Misfit finding them. Much worse, when he appears, though she tries to keep him from killing her, she makes no effort to save her family. In cont rast , Ames is a generous and reflective person who strenuously attempts to live up to his beliefs. He is a diligent minister and a loving husband and father. We discover, though, that for some forty years after the death in childbirth of his first wife and child, Louisa and Angeline, he withdrew into solitude and loneliness, fOCUSing more on studying theology and writing sermons than on ministering directly to his congregation. His worst sin, though, is "covetise;' which he defines as "that pang of resentment YOll may feel when even the people you love best have what YOll wanl and don't have" (134) and, later. as "taking offense at" the "virtue or happiness" of someone else (188).

SpeCifically. during his four decades of widowhood he envied Boughton his boisterolls family of eight children, and he particularly resented Boughton's naming his fifth child "John Ames." Boughton meant this act as a gift to his lonely friend, but Ames seems to have taken it as a denial of his


actual fatherhood and a pointed statement that the Boughtons were so fertile that they could symbolically give him one of their children. His resentment of his namesake turned into active dislike when Jack got Annie Wheeler pregnanl and did not acknowledge their daughter.6 111at baby's death in her mother's squalid home only sealed Ames' rejection of Jack. Ames is bitter that he "should [have lost] his child and [Jack] should just squander his fatherhood as if it were nothing ... ! don't forgive him. I wouldn't know where to begin" (164). ' Only when Ames realizes that he himself Jong ago squandered his chance to be a father to Jack does he become ready not only to forgive Jack but to love him.

Ames' "covetise" also makes him distrust Jack's motives in pleasing his wife, Lila, and son, Robby. Jack teaches Robby a little about baseball and plays catch with him because he hopes to make Ames look on him more favorably, but also because Robby reminds him of his own young son, also christened Robert Boughton. Ames does recognize that Jack is thoughtful and charming; he writes how "beautiful (it was] to watch (the] two in the flickering shade" as Jack teaches Robby to "scoop up grounders" ( IOI ) and, on another occasion, writes "It's pretty to watch you" as Jack bats fungo for Robby and his friend Tobias (165). Despite this esthetic appreciation, Ames is jealous because his heart is too weak for him to play with Robby himself. This is "covetise" again.

Ames tries to fight against this "sullen old reptilian self" (167) and to "think graC iously about (Jack]" (123), but he resents him so much that he docs a cruel thing and, worse, refuses to admit its cruelty. Seeing Jack sitting in church with Robby and Lila, Ames attacks him in his sermon because the three look "like a handsome young family, and my evil old heart rOSe within me, the old covet ise ... as if! were looking back from the grave" (141). Ames had been thinking about Angeline's death and Robby's fatherless future when he chose Hagar and Ishmael as his text, meaning to say that even when fathers are inadequate, God will provide. Yet motivated by jealousy, he uncharacteristically departs from what he has written and discusses children as victims of parental "rejection or violence," citing Matthew: "If anyone offend these little ones, it would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he were cast into the sea" (130).

He admits that "others in the congregation might have thought the sermon was directed at (Jack]" (131 )-many Gileadites must remember his youthful misdeeds-and the fact that Jack went "white as a sheet" (130) should have made Ames realize how much pain the sermon was causing

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him. However, Ames tells himself that what he saw on Jack's face was a grin, not his characteristic defensive smile. Even when Ames later ponders the effect of his sermon, he says, "it was considerable egotism on [Jack's] part to take my words as directed at him only, as he clearly did" (131). This is hypocrisy, for Ames has just admitted, "my extemporaneous remarks might have been influenced by his si tting there with that look on his face, right beside my wife and child" (131). Examining his conscience a few days later in a related contex t, be acknowledges, " ( conceal my motives from myself pretty effectively sometimes" (147).

Ames, then, is quite as capable of hypocrisy as the grandmother, although unljke her he struggles against it. And just as the grandmother is "not too well prepared" for death , which she "would like to see ... postponed. Indefinitely" (O'Connor, "On Her Own Work" 110), Ames admits, "The fact is, I don't want to be old. And I certain ly don't want to be dead" (l41).1"his is natural, but both characters are confronting imminent death, the grandmother immediately through violence and Ames at any moment because of a weak heart (an ailment symbolic of "cove lise"). Ames really does know thaI he has wounded Jack, for he says that Jack reacted as if he were being chastised, though he claims that Jack doesn't listen "to the meaning of words" but "just decides whether they are hostile" (130-31). Yet Jack is clearly shamed by the meaning of the sermon.

This point is made explicit in Home. After the service, Jack sits for hours in the barn trying to collect himself. When Glory finally finds him, he tells her,

The text was Hagar and Ishmael, the application was the disgraceful abandonment of children by their fathers. And the illustration was my humble self, sitt ing there beside his son with the eyes of Gilead upon me. lthink I was aghast. His intention, no doubt. To appall me, that is, to turn me white, as I am sure he did. Whiter. (206)

Ames says that Jack left the church "through the chancel and the side door, to avoid shaking hands with me" (147) rather than acknowledging the obvious reason, that Jack was ashamed to face not only him but the entire congregation. Jack's shame is confi rmed when he tells Glory, "I left through the chancel. I had half a mind to pull my jacket up over my head" (Home 206).8 Ames later worries, "lying awake Sunday night, that Jack might go away again because I had brought up the old catastrophe right there in church, or so he seemed to believe" (147-48). The last phrase is another

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example of his refusal to admit what he has done: he has brought up Jack's desertion of his child; Jack did not just "believe" it. The fact that Ames finds it increaSingly hard to sleep attests to the workings of his conscience against his hypocrisy.

Despi te their faitings, both the grandmother and Ames have attractive qualities, and they turn to their faith in crisis. Readers often dislike the grandmot her because she is mani pulative and snobbish, but although it would be a tria l to live with her, she is good hearted and seems truly interested in other people. She entertai ns Joh n Wesley and June Star in the car, noting points of interest, telling stories, and trying to keep them from fighti ng. She does not let them throw their sandwich box and napkins out of the windows, and she entertains the baby so her daughter-in-law can nap. She chats cheerfully with Red Sammy Butts and dances to "The Tennessee Waltz." She tries to see good in everyone, even if her idea of the good is snobbish. and she wants to believe thai the Misfit does not have "common blood" (138). She. not the Misfit. brings up religion. asking him. "Do you ever pray?" (140) and assuring him that if he prayed. "Jesus would help you" (J 41). At the climax of the story, she even forgets her own desperate situation to reach aLIt to him. Her religious convictions may not run deep, but they do exist.

If the grandmother can be hard to like. Ames is hard to dislike. He is kind, thought ful, devoted to his wife and son, reflective about his own life. He has lent money to members of his congregation with no thought of repayment (though he hopes they will help Lila after his death), and he counsels his flock abou t their problems. Ames tries to live up to his beliefs, turning frequently to Calvin's Institutes and to Karl Barth, and to be serviceable to those around him. Like the grandmot her, he enjoys the physical world, even waltzing to music on the radio as she does to the jukebox (50, 114- 15). This pleasure may owe something to his frequent reading of Feuerbach's TIle Essence of Christianity. In Ames' view, although Feuerbach was "a famous atheist ... he is about as good about the joyful aspects of religion as anybody, and he loves the world" (24). Unlike the grandmother, he regrets his unworthy actions, at least when he can admil their unworthiness. In short, the grandmother and Ames are mixtures of virtues and vices whose values derive from their joy in physical life and their Christian beliefs, although the brevity orO'Connor's story and its satiric style make the grandmother both less sympathetic and less interesting than Ames, whom we get to know in depth.

The same difference holds for the Misfit and Jack; the Misfit is a caricature. but Jack is a rounded figure despite remain ing somewhat mysterious and


distant. Nevertheless, they resemble each other in important ways. Both are serious, polite men who are also convicts: the Misfit has escaped from the "Federal Pen" ("A Good Man" 129), while Jack served time in prison some ten years earlier (Home 290). Also, neither call accept nor entirely abandon Christianity, perhaps due to problems with their fathers. Yet their unbelief is a sign of religiolls sentiment: O'Connor writes that the Misfit's "capacity for grace" is greater than the grandmother's ("On Her Own Work" Ill). white Robinson says that people who feel the lack of belief are closer to an answer than those who think that they know what God and belief are (Interview Part I wilh Silverblatt).

The Misfit's "scholarly look" and glasses (137) are in keeping with his knowledge of the Bible and his theological problem, which is that he rejects faith, "the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. II:!), as a basis for belief.9 His difficul ty is that he has no evidence that Jesus "ever raised the dead" (142); he wishes that he had witnessed a miracle because then he would not need faith, as he would have evidence that Jesus was the Savior. Like the Misfit, Jack knows the Bible well, is extremely polite, and has an air of gentlemanliness and seriOllsness. Ames wri tes that Jack, "heathen that he is;' has a "quiet voice and ... preached)' manner" though he adds that Jack "has done nothing to earn, or to deserve" those qualities (120). Like the Misfit, Jack would like to circumvent the problem of faith. lie thinks it would be "enviable ... to have [the] kind of certainty" tbat Ames' grandfather gained from his vision of Jeslls in chains telling him to fight slavery (Home 204). Lacking such certainty, Jack remains in a state of "C:ltegorical unbelief" (Gilead 220).

Jack's relationship with Ames calls for detailed exploration because the problem of fatbe rs. jllst touched on in "A Good Man," is central to Gilead. All we know about the Misfit's relationship to his father is that the "head-doctor at the penitentiary" said he had killed his father, although the Misfit said he died of flu (141). This may reflect a misunderstood diagnOSiS of an Oedipus complex, pOSSibly involVing rebellion against Christianity as a way to attack his fathe r. In Gilead, in contrast, Jack has suffered from Ames' refusal to act as a father to him. Like Ames and Robby. Jack was a natural loner who fe lt out of place in his large and boisterous family, and even as a small child he would "run off" from his parents and siblings (183).10 His alienation from his family, particularly his father, may be a reason he "could never believe a word [his] poor old father said" about religion (170).11 He would have been more at ease with Ames, who also felt uncomfortable in

FINDI NG O'CONNOR'S "GOOD MAN" 309

the tumultuous Boughton house, and he might have accepted religious instruction from Ames if he had offered it. Ames admi ts that Jack was his "godson, more or less" (92) because he baptized him, because Jack is his namesake, and because Jack's father is his dosest friend. He should have been Jack's "second father" (231), but he has always rejected Jack out of "covetise:' When he was told to christen the baby "John Ames;' he thought, "This is 110t my child-which I truly had never thought of any child before" (188). FolloWing Ihis reasoning, Ames now speculates that "the child felt ... how far my thoughts were from bleSSing him;' though he goes on to reject the idea as "magical thinking" (188).

Getting this far, Ames finally begins to feel a "burden of gU ilt toward that child" (188) and perhaps also toward the adult Jack has become. A little later, he imagines "how it wou ld be if Jack Boughton were indeed my son, and had come home weary from whatever life he had" (197). Later that night, after an overheard conversation between Lila and Jack has let him see more deeply into Jack's loneliness and sadness, Ames wishes he could "put [his] hand on his brow and calm away all the gUilt and regret that is exaggerated or misplaced, or beyond rectification in the terms of this world," although he calls the idea "theologically unacceptable" (201). Ames is realizing that ifhe can love Ula although ber life before he knew her was no doubt rather sordid, he should be able to accept Jack. Also, he is beginning to fi nd "where the grace is for [him] in this" situation (201), haVing become more aware of his fallibility through examination of his conscience. As Robinson says, "The belief that we are all sinners gives us excellent grounds for forgiveness and self-forgiveness ... even while it affirms the standards that all of us fail to attain" (Death 156). Glory makes much the same theological point humorously by asking Jack, "How could you think you were the only sinner in the family? We're Presbyterians!" (Home 124).

Unfortunately, while Boughton has always forgiven Jack unconditionally for his many misdeeds, Jack cannot forgive himself, though he forgives others. He sees himself as not merely "a sinful man" (Home 224), but as the only sinner in the Ames and Boughton families, and despite his stated unbelief, he fears damnation. 12 He even identifies himself with Dives (Luke 16:20-31) when he asks Ames, "Does it seem right to you . .. that there should be no way to bring a drop of water to those of us who langUish in the flames, or who will?" (Gilead 170). His sense of sin is exacerbated by his belief that those around him are righteous; his last words to Ames as he gets on the bus are "You're all saints" (242). "this opinion also helps motivate his

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humility and generosity, shown in how readily he forgives others, including Glory (Home 80,136) and Boughton (Home 114- 15). As he explains, he must even forgive Ames for making him the subject of his sermon: "Maybe I've forgiven him already .... He might take it as a sign of character. [t might look like generosity or humility ... II can'tl risk upsetting [our father] by holding a grudge against Ames .... I [mustl seize upon the only undamaging choice" (Home 211). Even if Jack forgives from practical rather than ethical reasons, the forgiveness is more than "undamaging"; it is healing for both himself and Ames.

Jack has always forgiven Ames' coldness and hoped for some acknowledgment from him; even now Jack hopes Ames will help him both with his spiritual difficulties and with making a home for Della and Robert in Gilead. Because of Ames' "covetise;' Jack's repeated attempts as a child to attract his attention just antagonized him, alt hough Jack's early misdeeds do not seem much worse than other children's pra nks Ames recounts. I ) Jack could not get Ames to respond even when, al age "'ten or twelve ... he filled [Ames'] mailbox with wood shavings and set them on fire" (ISO). Ames just put out the fire and said nothing (Home 127). Ames does not realize that ten-year-old Jack stole the Model T (whose odyssey became part of local lore) to get his admiration or attention; that was why Jack told no one else. He does understand that only a lonely child would have painted his sleps with molasses or broken the windows of his study, but it does not occur to him that he should have done something to help the boy. He remembers that once when he was talking with Boughton, Jack sat nearby "fiddling with a slingshot ... and from time to time he would look up al me and smile, as if we were in on a joke together, some interesting conspiracy" (IS4). The conspiracy is that alt hough Jack had broken Ames' windows with that slingshot, Ames sa id nothing about it, not even to Jack's father. In the lonely boy's mind, this shared knowledge connected them.

The thefts Ames deplores, too, began as Jack's probably unconscious attempt to become part of Ames' family. He stole treasures meaningless to anyone outside the family, including a photograph of Louisa and the Greek Testament that Ames' grandfather had taken with him to the Civil War. But having the objects did not make Jack less lonely, so they eventually found their way back. Similarly, when Jack called him "Papa;' which Ames "preferred" to think he did "because his parents encouraged it" (91), he was asking Ames to be his father. In the present of the novel, Jack still sometimes calls him "Papa" because he has not given up hope that Ames will help him

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as a father would, though he is also needling Ames for rejecting him. After his first visit to Ames, Jack tells Glory, "I called him Papa. He deserved it, too. He hadn't even mentioned to the wife that my father had honored him with a namesake. Can you imagine?" (Home 127). Jack reinforces the idea that Ames is his father by calling Robby "little brother" (92), to the boy's delight and Ames' annoyance. In contrast, when Ames finally sees that he really is "a second father" (Gilead 231) to Jack, he accepts being called "Papa:' As Jack reports to Glory, "I called him Papa, and this time I think it may even have pleased him a little" (Home 308). So while we do not know much about the Misfit's problems with his father, we learn in detail about Jack's attempts to get Ames to act as a father and Ames' refusal to do so until the end.

The Misfit and Jack are both haunted by the question of how to live, but different ly. The Misfit sees it as an either-or issue: if Jesus is the Son of God, one must "follow Him"; if not, one can only "enjoy the few minutes" of life by committing "meanness" ("A Good Man" 142). In contrast, Jack sincerely loves others, most obviously his father, Della, and Robert, and he suffers from the pain he cannot avoid causing them. The Misfit says that there is "no pleasure but meanness" in life if there is no God (142), but for Jack, "There's no pleasure in [sin]. For me, at least;' although he adds with characteristic honesty at his own expense, "Not much, anyway" (Home 224). Jack is actually more concerned about those he loves than himself. This shows most clearly in the discussion of predestination which takes place before Ames has overcome his distrust of Jack. When Jack asks, "are there people who are simply born evil, live evil lives, and then go to hell?" (lSI). he is not only wondering whether he is predestined to damnation but also whether he will always hurt others no matter how hard he tries to act responsibly. He even says he could accept being predestined to earthly misbehavior and subsequent perdition "if the consequences were not so painful. For other people" (Home 225). Ames tells him that one can change, but his example is negative; drinking can change a person for the worse. He does not add that staying sober can change one fo r the better, though that would be more apropos, Jack being a largely reformed alcoholic. It is Lila, who has become a respectable wife and mother, who assures Jack, "A person can change. Everything can change" (Gilead 153).

Grace should be the answer to Jack's problem: if he could accept what Boughton believes is God's continual proffering of grace, he would be more at ease about his future on earth and about his soul, but he has "never felt


that grace was intended fo r [him], particularly" (Home 271),14 Ames too mentions grace, but Jack is concerned, as he says, not with the presence of grace but what he experiences as its "absence" in his own life (Gilead 170). Ames is not yet able to help him because, like the grandmother in "A Good Man;' he is more concerned with defending himself-"winning the conversation," he ca lls it (172), though doing so makes him unhappy-than with helping a "tormented sou\" (153). Yet unlike the grandmother he tries to sec and overcome his weakness, admitting that he has been "failing the truth" (172).

Grace enters "A Good Man" abruptly when the grandmother reaches oul to the Misfit. O'Connor says that the "gesture which somehow made contact with mystery" occurs when the grandmother sees "that she is responsible fo r the man before her and joined to him by ties of kinship" ("On Her Own Work" 111-12). That gesture is the grandmother's telling the Misfit, "Why, you're one of my babies. You're one of my own childrenJ" and touching him (143). On a psychological level she is confused because the Misfit has put on "a yellow shirt with bright blue parrots on it" which Bailey wore moments earlier (141). But on the "anagogicallevel" ("On Her Own Work" 111), we are seeing the Holy Spirit descend and "the action of grace in the Grandmother's soul" COn Her Own Work" 113), presented in O'Connor's quirky way. The shirt not only has parrots on it but is birdlike itself, for it comes "flying at [the Misfit] and land[sJ on his shoulder" (141), its parrots having presumably flown in from Flaubert's "Un Creur simple;' in which Feliciltfs parrot Loulou incarnates the Holy Spi rit. When the Misfit recoils and shoots her, her chi ldlike posit ion and expression indicate that she has, in Catholic terms, suffered "death in Christ, the actual coincidence of the moment of death with the tife or state of grace" (Stevens 95) shown by her having performed an "act of living faith, informed by charity" (93), justified through "the bestowal of sanctifying grace" (92). Having died in a state of grace, the grandmother is saved, and the Misfit may ultimately be saved as well, at least according to O'Connor's comments cited above. The problem with th is ending is that it aSsumes theological knowledge not presented in the story and a motivation beyond the psychological, which is that "her inexplicable love for [the Misfit] ma kes sense on ly as an expression of God's inexplicable love for LIS" (Hawkins 47), and as a result "the mystery ... remains mystifying for anyone who is not steeped in O'Connor's world (49).

Robinson presen ts the workings of grace very differently. For one thing, she includes enough theology throughout Gilead to take the reader along


with her; for another, rather than showing a sudden event, she presents the slow workings of "prevenient grace" (246) which, through Ames' prayer and self-questioning, prepares him intellectually and emotionally to accept the grace which leads him to love and then 10 bless Jack. Even before Jack tells him why he has returned to Gilead, Ames decides, after his long spiritua l struggle, "John Ames Boughton is my son .... By 'my son' I mean another self, a more cherished self" (189). He accepts Jack not because he has learned of Jack's last len years of struggle to lead a respectable life or that he has a wife and child (that knowledge comes later); he accepts him because he now clearly sees his own failings and therefore his own need for fo rgiveness. He reflects thai it is "a rejection of grace to hold our enemy at fault" (189) and furthermore that Jack has never been his enemy as far as he knows, though he still suspects Jack of having designs on Lila and Robby (189). After more thought and prayer, Ames even accepts the possibility thai his death may bring Li la "a greater happiness than [he has) given her" (209) in the form of life with Jack: "Love is holy because it is like grace-the worthiness of the object is never what matters" (209). That is to say, a fathe r's unconditional love of a son, no matter how unworthy, is the human image of God's love for any person, no matter how sinful. Robinson says that the "point of the parable" of the prodigal son, which underlies both Gilead and Home, "is grace rather than forgiveness. The ... father is always the father. Despite and without conditions" (Robinson, "Marilynne Robinson"). Ames, then, accepts Jack as a sort of adopted son, somewhat like "the Lord [who) adopts us for his sons" (Calvin 77), though Calvin immediately adds that God does so "on the cond ition that our life be a representation of Christ." Ames is imitating Christ by accepting Jack as a son, but like the father in the parable, he does so without conditions.

Although Ames does not give Jack practical help because he cannot assure Jack that Boughton would accept a Black daughter-in-law or grandson or even that they would be safe in Gilead, his acceptance comforts Jack spiritually. Yet Jack's revelations may help Ames even more than Ames has helped him, for through learning how Jack has struggled and how loving and humble he is, Ames comes not just to accepl him as a son but to love him. He believes Ihal Jack's recent mature "behavior" reflects his "nature;' to lise the terms he employed in the discussion of predestination, rather than "works" and "faith" (lSI). He also recogn izes how much he and Jack resemble each other: both were lonely most of their lives, both lost their daughters to early death, and both are worried that their young


sons will grow up without their protection. Even Ames' desire during his widowhood "to say, I have a wife, too, I have a child, too" (65), is echoed by Jack's declaration to Ames, "I also have a wife and child" (219). Ames uses the same phrase to justify Jack's decision to leave Gilead before his many fruitful brothers and sisters arrive: "How could he be there in the midst of it all with that sad and splendid treasure in his heart?-I also have a wife and a child" (237).

There is no beauty in ''A Good Man;' but esthetics plays a role in the theology of Gileari. Jack's account orhis last ten years allows Ames to sec the "beauty there is in him" (232), that is, in Jack's struggles to be respectable, his taking responsibility for his acts, his complete lack of self-pity, his humility, and his concern for others. Robinson finds grounds for stich esthetic judgment in Calvin's theology: "Calvin says that God takes an aesthetic pleasure in people .... King David, for example, was up to a lot of no good. To think that only faultless people are worthwhile seems like an incredible exclusion of almost everything of deep value in the human saga" {"The Art of Fiction"}.15 Appreciating Jack's "beauty; Ames is ready to tell him that he is a good man, and he does so. The grandmother's telling the Misfit that he is a good man is merely desperate flattery, but Ames means what he says.

A few days later, Ames makes the gestures which correspond to the grandmother's touching the Misfit and calling him "one of [her] babies." As he walks to the bus stop with Jack, Ames gives him his worn copy of 111e Essence oj Cllristiallity. This is a remarkable gesture for several reasons. For one thing, the book consists of an argument in favor of humanism, insists on the need for practical action to cope with personal and societal problems. and stresses the beauty of the physical world. By giving Jack this book, Ames is offering him the kind of comfort that he might be able to accept rather than the Christian texts which have not salved him in the past. Also, as it is the sort of thing that Jack used to steal from Ames, it "made [Ames] feel as though the book did actually belong 10 him" (239). Finally, Ames had originally meant to leave the book to Robby (27), so giving it to Jack acknowledges him as his son.

Ames also acts like a father moments lalt'T when he blesses Jack, atoning for the blessing he spoke but did not mean when he baptized him. Ames even tells him "it was an honor to bless him. And that was also absolutely true .... I said, 'We all love yOll, yOll know; and he laughed" (242). Jack's acceptance of the blessing, from which he looks up somewhat dazed, may indicate that he is growing into an acceptance of grace or will do so

F I NDING O'CONNOR'S "GOOD MAN" 3 15

later. Ames, though, is the more blessed of the two, for he has grown past the "covet ise" wh ich kept him from seeing and responding to Jack's need fo r a fathe r and has come to love him "as much as [Jack's father] mea nt [him ] 10" (244). The grand mother in uA Good Man" dies in a state of grace which might not have lasted long had she lived, but Ames is living in the assurance of God's continuing grace as "one of those righteous for whom the rejoicing in heaven will be comparatively restrai ned" (238). In other words, O'Connor presents a woman who is saved through grace al most despite herself; Robinson shows a devout man working his way to a more profound understand ing of his obligations to others but who has always had confidence in God's cont inuing grace by which he hopes to be saved. O'Connor gave the Misfit the last words in her story; in contrast, it is fitting that Ames' med itations on the beauty of Creation and his hopes for a better fu ture fill the last pages of Gilead.

College O/S(l1I Mateo

NOTES

I Painter traces Ames' soul-searching and spiritual development in her essay. As this is a concern of mine as well, she and I treat some of the same points but from different perspectives.

Z'fhis theme has escaped some readers. lodd Shy's discussion of Gilead and TIU! Death of Adam finds Ames "if anything, too good, too saintly" and demonizes Jack.

lOne example of going beyond doctrine is that Ames gives Robby bread from the communion table because Lila tells him to and because he wants to create a memory for Robby similar \0 his own memory of his father giving him burned biscuit after the church fire. Similarly, Glory tells Jack that she likes his soul "the way it is" (Home 287) although by this time she has discovered many of h is failings. Jack's alienation from respectable life may make both Ames and Glory expand their understand ing of virtue to account for their growing love for him.

~As th is essay makes clear, this "goodness" is relative; Robi nson subscribes to Calvin's doctrine of ~total depravity:' though she does not care for that expression ("Onward Christian Liberals" 50-51 ).

5Robil1son says Jack is so "obliquely related to respectable society" that he "isn't confident" enough to say that society is II'rang to condemn his relationship with Della although he is her husband every way but legally (~Marilynne Robinson").

(, It is not Jack's fa thering a child with a you ng girl that most distresses Ames (as Painter claims, 97); Ames explains, "This sort of thing happens, and it is sorted


out one way or another, as any clergyman can tell you" ( 156), What offends him is that Jack did nOI assume a father's responsibility. Unwilling to ascribe Jack any good motives, Ames first asserts that Jack admitted his fatherhood to Boughton out of "pure meanness" (157), but objective consideration later leads him to write \hal it could have been Jack's way of seeing thaI Ihe child would be looked after ( 163), much as Jack's leaving his caT in Gilead allowed Glory and Boughton to go to the Wheeler home outside of town (158).

7The parallel between the two little girls is reinforced by allusions to the verse "Take heed that ye despise not one ofthesc little ones; for ... in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven" (Malt. 18:10). The Boughtons put "Their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father in Heaven" on the headstone of Jack's baby (159). When Ames' daughter was born, Boughton, not knowing that Ames had planned to name her Rebecca and in haste to baptize her because she was dying, called her Angeline because of that same verse (17-18, 56).

80 ne remembers that in The Scarlet Leiter, if Hester Prynne "entered a church, trusting to share the Sabbath smile of the Universal Father, it was often her mishap to find herself the text orthe discourse" (Hawthorne 80).

9Ames knows that proofs of religion are "never sufficient to the question" (Gilcad 179).

lOPainter discusses this element of the novel, though somewhat differently (98).

IIIn contrast, Painter ascribes his "desperate situation" to "the religious exclusivism and self-righteousness of others~ (lOl). The "others" she has in mind seem to be Presbyterians and Congregationalists in general, but Ames' rejection of Jack is contrary to Ames' faith, not a result of it.

n ln Home, he tells Glory. "Perdition is the one thing that always made sense to me. I mean, it has always seemed plausible. On the basis ormy experience" (119). Many words are used to describe Jack, especially in Home, but he is the only one who refers to himself as "unregenerate" (143) or as a "reprobate" (154, 241). In each of those cases, he is referring to how he believes his father and I or Ames thinks of him and h is tone seems to be ironic, but he is clearly disturbed by Boughton's fears for his soul and Ames' rejection.

II Jack's actions are often equally unlucky in the present, as shown by Ames' resentment of Jack's attentions to Robby. [n another situation, when Ames takes as a slight against his vocation a comment Jack has made about himself, Jack responds ruefully. "1 alwars seem to give offense. I don't always intend to" (169).

t4[ thank the Rev. Byron Bland of the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation for his guidance concerning the Catholic and Calvinist theologies of grace. Any errors are my own.


ISAlIusions to King David in Home, while not equating Jack with David, remind readers that God loved him because he was esthetically pleasing despite his sins and therefore suggest that Jack's charm, talents, and sincerity may make God look graciously on him. Although David "committed many grave sins" (Home 221), he was also "a man after [God's] own heart" (I Sam. 13:14) who "served his own generation by the will of God" (Acts 13:36). Jack makes the only explicit reference to David when he says that the death of David and Bathsheba's child may shed light on God's role in the death of babies, with particular reference to the deaths of Ames' and Jack's baby daughters (Home 221). Also, byexpJicitlycomparing himself to "Saul in his madness," Boughton implicitly compares Jack to David (Home J 13, I Samuel 24). Because of that comparison, Jack's playing the piano for Boughton in HOllie evokes David's playing the harp for Saul (I Sam. 16:23). Jack's skill with a slingshot recounted in Gilead also associates him with David.

WORKS CITED

Appleyard, Bryan. "Marilynne Robinson: world's best writer of prose." Sunday Times 21 Sept. 2OOS. Web. 13 Feb. 2009.

Calvin, John. }ollll Calvin: Steward of God's Covenant. Selected Writings. Eds. John E Thornton and Susan B. Varenne. Pref. Marilynne Robinson. New York: Vintage, 2006.

Hawkins, Peter S. "[ize Lallglwge of Grace: Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, and Iris Murdoch. Cambridge, MA: Cowley, 19S3.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. 71le Scarlet Letter. New York: Holt, 1961. O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man is Hard to Find.~ 71lree: Wise Blood, A Good

Man 15 Hard to Pind, -l1Ie Violent Bear It Away. New York: Signet, 1964. 129-43.

_. "On Her Own Work:' Mystery alld Manners: Occasional Prose. Sel. and Ed. Sally and Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Farrar, 1969. 107- IS.

Painter, Rebecca M. "Virtue in Marilynne Robinson's Gilead.~ Virtues and Passions ill Literature: Excelleuce, CO/lrage, Ellgagcmellts, Wisdom, Fulfillmellt. Ed. Anna -Teresa Tymieniecka. Analecta Hllsserlimla 96. Springer Netherlands, 200S. 93- 112. Web. 25 Feb. 2009.

Robinson, Marilynne. "The Art of Fiction No. 198.~ Interview. Paris Review IS6 (Fait 2OOS). Web. 2 J May 2009.

_ . 71le Deatll of Adtlltl: Essays all Modern 7110Ilgllt. Boston: Houghton, 1995. _0 Gilead. New York: Picador, 2006. _ . Home. New York: Farrar, 2OOS. _ . Interview Part [ by Michael Silverblatt. Bookworm. National Public Radio.

KCRW, Santa Monica. 17 March 2005. Web. 4 March 2009. _ . Interview Part II by Michael Silverblatt. Bookworm. National Public Radio.

KCRW, Santa Monica 24 March 2005. Web. 4 March 2009.

318 C HRI STIANITY AND LI TE RATURE

_. "Marilynnc Robinson (BSS #240).~ Interview. TIle Bat Segundo Show. Podeas! 8 Oct. 2008. Web. 18 July 2009.

_' "Onward, Christian Liberals." Americall SclJolar 7S (Spring 2006): 42-51. _' "A World of Beautiful Souls: An Interview with Marilynne Robinson."

Interview with SCO\1 Hoczee. Perspectives. May 2005. Web. 15 July 2009. Shy. Todd. "Religion and Marilynne Robinson," Salmagundi. Summer 2007. Web.

S Feb. 2009. Stevens, P. Gregory. TIle Life ofGmce. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, \963.

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Finding Flannery O'Connor's "Good Man" in Marilynne Robinson's Gileadand Home

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flannery o'connor's good man in marilynne robinson's gilead and home

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