Cisristimlity and Litemture

Vol. 59, No.2 (Winter 20/0)

Fraught with Fire:

Race and Theology in Marilynne Robinson's Gilead
Lisa M. Siefker Bai ley

Written in the form of a spiraling letter with qualities of a sermon, a

meditation, a diary. and a journal, Marilynne Robinson's Gilead offers a
reflection of both lamentation and celebration but ends with a hope for a
restoration Robinson presents as transcendence. Due to his terminal heart
condition, the letter's author, Congregationalist minister John Ames. knows
he will not spend much time with his son on earth. Ames laments this fact
through words he hopes will allow him to connect in deep meaningful ways
with the grown son he is destined not to know in Ihis life. Ames writes this
letter with the sa me zeal he wrote sermons in his career, sermons which
willialer be burned. As Ames faces the mystery of death, he becomes ever
closer to God, both spiritually and literally. For Christians like Ames. there's
life after death. Here on earth, there is something good in the mystery of
what he doesn't understand. Robinson suggests a transcendent notion of
Christianity that encompasses both larger mysteries. One way Robinson
represents these mysteries is through the shifting and contrary symbol of
fi re. The novel is so rich with images of fire that Elle book reviewer Lisa
Shea calls Gilead "laJn inspired work from a writer whose sensibility seems
steeped in holy fire" (J 70). Ames' story uses fire as a representation of the
energy ofheing, which can become destructive like the puritanical mistakes
made in Ames' grandfather's church. or transcendent. like the filling of the
Holy Spiri!. 1
We have seen Robinson use images of water, air, earth, and fi re in
HOllsekeeping. Stefan Mattessich has suggested that fire in HOllsekeeping
provides a Derridean metaphor of spirit (75). Mattessich points out that
Sylvie's bonfire which burns her collection of magazines and newspapers
becomes a kind of "fire-writing" that helps to draw boundaries around
social norms in communication (75-76). "What goes up in flames for Ruth
and Sylvie:' writes Mattessich, "is the world of these norms" (76). Mattessich

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uses Derrida to suggest that fire in Housekeeping works as a force that allows
Sylvie and Ruth to break free of the social norms of Fingerbone and al the

same time "fold them back into it" (76) as they become drifters in and around
it. Mattessich then demonstrates that Sylvie and Ruth have ambivalence
about the world. and he eventually argues Ihal Robinson shows that
"nuctuations of the spirit are at their Illost material and the sacred is indeed
acutest at its vanishing" (83). 1his sentiment is also true in Gilead, where
Ames understands his faith, his own spirit if you will, and the very essence
of others best when he is closest to losing his life and thus all connection
with them. Unlike HOllsekeepillg in which, as Mattcssich notes, fire docs not
enter until late in the novel, fire pops up everywhere in Gilead, from the
sermons in the attic to his grandfather's lctter that Ames burned, from the
Negro church to the fireflies in the yard. ~ Maltessich reminds us that, at the
end of HOllsekeeping, we never know "whcther the house survives the fire or
not" (76). The same is true of Ames' sermons and of the letter he is writing.
At the end of the novel, we come to the end of Ames' life, and Ames suggcsts
that Robert ask Lila to have the deacons arrange to "have those old sermons
of mine burned .... There are enough to make a good fire. I'm thinking
here of hot dogs and marshmallows, something 10 celebrate the first snow.
Of course shc can set by any of them she might want to keep" (Robinson,
Gilead 245). Just as we are unable to tell whether or not the house survives
the fire at the end of Housekeeping, we are unable to Icarn whethcr or not
Ames' sermons survive the fire he requests.
While fire in HOllsekeepillg becomes a symbol of bot h disenfranchisement
and power that changcs social norms and main characters, fire in Gilead
represents both the destructive forces of society and the power of the spirit,
in both the Holy Spirit of the triune God and the spirit of humanity, sent
by God and sharcd by peoplc. 111C Holy Spirit appears in Acts 2 on the day
of Pentecost as fire that rests on the apostles. That fire allows the apostles
to speak in tongues and spread the word of God. Without this gift of the
Holy Spirit, the apostles would be restricted to witnessing to those who
could understand their hlllguage. The fire of Pentecost is a contrary symbol
because it flames but does not burn. Likewise, the word of God shifts
throughout the triune God as it is eternal in the F,lIher, becomes flesh in the
son, and is spread by the Holy Spirit. Ames is keenly aware of the contraries
embodied in images and shifts of meaning in words. He realizes that, ifhis
son received his tetter, his son may not envision or interpret his words the
way he mcant them. For that matter, Ames seems aware thnt Jack Boughton
does not interpret his words the way Ames means, and that old Boughton

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267

may not either. Ames, too, (mis)reads the relationship between Lila and
Jack. His age and experience. howe\'er, do give him a bit of wisdom that he
could not have had as a younger man. And more importantly, he has belief,
faith in things unseen, including a faith that he is in a beautiful world that is
good because God made it so. Ames attempts to see and to help assuage the
pain of those around him, and he desperately looks for the good in all. Even
when he cannot see good directly, he seeks it. "I believe there are visions
that come to LIS only in memory, in retrospect. That's the pulpit speaking,
but it's telling the truth" (Gilead 91). In th is case, Ames is confident of the
success in his sermonic articulation of this idea. The mystery of it lies in
understanding the vision through memory. Memory is a construction. and
Ames hopes to const ruct love in the memories he has as well as those he
creates in th is letter, even as he acknowledges the difficulty in doing so.
Ames remarks, "Remembering and forgiving can be contrary things" ([64).
Remembering for Ames encompasses pains, griefs, and losses. His "endless
letter" both rejoices in the transcendent possibility of connecting with his
son after his death and is reminiscent of a jeremiad, as a long letter which
laments the loss of a relationship wit h hisson.) Ames' collection of memories
in his letter, however, ends wit h the promise of redempt ion. Ames is awa re
of the prophecy of the end times: "I suppose it's natural to think about those
old boxes of sermons upstairs. They are a record of my life, after all, a sort of
foretaste of the Last Judgment, really. so how can I not be curious?" (Gilead
41). Using language reflective of the sacrament of communion, in which
Christians receive a "foretaste of the feast to come," Robinson weaves in
apocalyptic language that smacks of both law and of gospel. rt is the record
of his life that would condemn it, but it is God's grace that would save it. As
George T. Montague explains when he traces images of the Holy Spirit from
its cleansing judgment in Isaiah, "When the Lord ... purges Jerusalem's
blood fro m her midst with the spirit of judgment and the spirit of fire" to
the New Testament images "which Jesus explains to the disciples of John the
Baptist that he has not come to apply the heavenly blow-torch to his people
but to proclaim the healing mercy of God" (40). lhllS, the fire of the Holy
Spirit in the O ld Testament judges, and the fi re of the Holy Spirit in the New
Testament transforms.
This mystery, the combination of judgment and grace, is embodied in
the contrary image offire throughout Gilead. Ames is surrounded by images
of sparks that Signal growing fire. Ames does not dwell directly on suffering
or lamentations, but his frustrations seep into his narrative as they are

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in herent in his memories and part of the record orhis life. He recalls a night
he and Boughton sat on the porch steps watch ing fireflies, and Boughton
remarked:
"Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward:' And really, it was that
night as if the earth were smoldering. Well it was, and it is. An old fi re
will make a dark husk for itself and settle in on its core, as in the case
of this pbnet. I believe the same metaphor rna)' describe the human
individual, as well. Perhaps Gilead. Perhaps civilization. Prod a little
and the sparks will fly. (Gilead 72)

The burn ing of the Negro church, which he has reduced in his mind to
a small incident, the civil righ ts movement burgeoning in the south, and
a great many olher sparks glow around him. But unless he looks for them
or prods Ihem, he is unaware of such issues. He concerns himself with his
own worries, which are so narrow Ihal he covets the friendship his younger
wife has with Jack, even though Jack is wounded and wea ry, 3 nea rly broken
soul.
As Ames narrates the story of his life and ponders those around him. his
vision is fraugh t with fire, fire thai often represents annihi lat ion of sinners
and the painful loss of those who feel sin's gUilt and the loss of compassion
that such destruction leaves behind. These fire images are used in several
ways. First, the "rascally young fellows" joking after work are covered in
so much black grease and strong gasoline that Ames wonde rs "why they
don't catch fire themselves" (Gilead 5). Ames finds them a thi ng of beauty,
walking quotidian poetry. In contrast, Ames did not realize at Ihe time
how much anger there was in the fire that destroyed the Negro church. In
warning, he cautions his son, "A little too much anger, too often or at the
wrong ti me, can destroy more than you would ever imagine" (6). When
the church burned, Ames knew the fire was a serious wrong, but no one in
Gi lead could imagine the depth of pain it caused the families. No one cou ld
imagine the sins of the fathers falling as they do on Jack Boughton and his
wife and son, a mirror of Ames' own. Ames receives his wife and son late
in life and cannot believe they are his. Jack obtains his wife and son in the
prime of his life and also cannot believe they are his. Both, however, are
disallowed time to spend wilh their wives and sons. Jack and Ames both
end up disenfranchised from their families, Jack by society, and Ames by
age. 4 Ames is cognizant of the disconnect between himself and his son and
realizes the letter he is writing may not even reach its intended recipient.
Ames hopes, in language which echoes a Puritanical sermon, that the letter
might not be "lost or burned also" (40).

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269

Not only do Ames' words have the pOlential to be destroyed literally

because of fire. but words. even without malicious intent, can become
destructive like the church fire. Ames writes, "Above all. mind what you
say. 'Behold how much wood is kindled by how small a fire, and the tongue
is a fire'-that's the truth. When my father was old he told me that very
thing in a letter he sent me. Which. as it happened, I burned" (Gilead 6).
No wonder Ames considers that the letter he is writing may be burned. as
thai is exactly what he did with his father's letter. Ames seems aware of the
irony here and how hard it is for people to learn their lessons. Just before
Robinson introduces the first "Negro" in Ames' letter, Ames writes that
"one lapse of judgment can qUickly create a situation in which on ly foolish
choices are possible" (60). The fire set at the Negro church is the opposite
of the fire of the Holy Spirit. The destructive church fire is a representation
not of Christlike qualities but of the fa lse representation of God by humans
who made a bad choice. The novel is set in 1956. within two years of the
landmark case of Browl! V. Board of Education of Topeka and four years
after the publication of Ralph Ellison's I/lvisible Mall. Ames' letter does
not mention social changes in race relations. and he does not mention any
African American authors in his library, even when he describes orderi ng
more books than he ever had time to read. He has "mostly theology. and
some old travel books from before the wars" (77). The effects of the fire at
the Negro church have kindled results with fa r greater and more damaging
consequences than Ames realizes until the last section of the novel when
Ames begins to understand Jack's plight.
The tapestry in Ames' grandfather's church proclaimed, "The Lord Our
God Is a Purifying Fire" (Gilead 99). Ames writes about how angry his
father became because the congregants of that church justified the war wit h
that phrase. One woman even called it "just a bit of scripture" (99). Here.
Ames continues to explore the nature of how things mean. The people of
that church wanted to believe the war they were fighting was sanctioned
by God. and they even went so far as to create the gloriOUS tapestry to
celebrate God's glory in their fight. This sort of bloodshed, however, inflicts
the deep psychological and phYSical wounds that need the balm of Gilead
for healing. Just because people want to just ify things as God's will does not
make them so. Sometimes God is represented falsely by the church, and
such representations come out of man's inability to be p ure. ~ Ames felt he
had a special transcendent communion. a connecting experience with his
father after his grandfather's church burned. But as he describes the spiritual
way his fa ther fed him the biscuit with ash, Ames writes, "My point here is

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that you never do know the actual nature even of your own experience"
(95). The church burned from a desire to control society and to control the
hegemony orthe lowll.TIle righteousness of their puritanical errand was a
self-glorification al best and a damning crime as viewed by anyone outside
their self-justified and self-serving missioll .
Even though he did not burn down the Negro church, Ames is guilty for
it, just as he waS drawn in to the things his grandfather did in Kansas. Ames
writes:
! was in on the secret, loo- implicated without knowing what I was
implicated in. Well, that's the human condition, I suppose. I believe
I was implicated, and am, and would have been if J had never seen
that pistol. [\ has been my experience that guilt can burst though the
smallest breach and cover the landscape, and abide in it in pools and
danknesses, just as native as water. (Gilead 82)

Ames sees the sins of the fathers fall upon him. Ames felt his father should
hide the gUilt of his father and that he should hide the guilt of h is, but he
reveals the rift and the fact that he kept the note his grandfather left. The rift
between father and son is emblematic oflarger rifts, for example, in society,
the rift of segregation and laws against miscegenation, and, in Christianity.
the rift of sin which separates man from paradise and from God. As people
are torn apart, those who cross social lines like Jack Boughton become
displaced and in a sense erased from both the white culture in towns like
Gilead and from black cultu re in cities like MemphiS. Once again, sin causes
consequences, not only in continued separation from God, but also in
separation from would-be earthly comfort such as family. 111e displacement
in both cases causes misunderstanding and confusion, leaving all in a world
where no one can see anyone else's situations or intents clearly.
Ames also experiences misunderstanding and confusion and seems
blind to the nature of his own experience when Jack visits his house. He
does not ask Lila about her past, and he misreads Jack's familiarity with Lila.
Ames is so concerned that Jack may take his place as husband and father
to them that he cannot see Jack's pain. He is aware of something amiss with
Jack. Ames says Jack has always looked to him "like a man standing too
dose to a fire, tolerating present pain, knowing he's a half step away from
something worse" (Gilead 191). Ames reads Jack's awkward and unsettled
nonverbal communication, but Ames does not interpret it correctly. Not
until the end of the novel, or even until the end of Home, does the reader

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271

have a strong idea of why Jack acts the way he does. In her introduction to
TIle Death of Adam, Robinson states:
Evidence is alway~ construed, and it is always liable to being
misconstrued no matter how much care is exercised in collecting and
evaluating it. At best, our understanding of any historical moment is
significantly wrong, and this should come as no surprise, since we have
little grasp of any given moment. The present is elusive (or the same
reasons as is the past. (4)

Robinson's characters often have little understanding of their own moments,

the moments of those they love, or of the moments of those they know more
remotely through connect ions in society. [n effect, they stand close to each
other, the way Jack stood too close to the fire, enduring pain-Jack enduring
the pain of courting damnation, and-those close to him enduring the pain
of not knowing how to understand what is right next to them. Jack's loved
ones try very hard in their own inefficient and unsatisfying ways to reach
out to him, to save him, their beloved prodigal. Their work appears to have
no effect, however, as Jack always falls back into the same patterns of sin
and continues to look like he's standing 100 dose to the fires of hell and
damnation . Jack is an everyman here, as all sinners are, the prodigal son
unable to make spiritual progress (to move away from fiery damnation)
without God's grace.
Fire in Gilead represents both the spiritual progress of the puritanical
errand into the wilderness to save those standing too close to the fires
of damnation and a herald of the civil rights movement. Robinson also
uses fire imagery to transcend those same painful earthly struggles and
offer hope of a new vision, the sort of loving transcendent vision Ames'
grandfather wrote about in the note he left on the kitchen table (Gilead 85).
At the end of the novel, Ames sees not only the fires of bell on earth but
also the fire of the righteous God. The ruins of courage and hope seem to
Ames but an ember, and be believes "the good Lord will surely someday
breathe it into flame again" (246). Gilead does not look like the floor of hell,
but it looks "like whatever hope becomes after it begins to weary a little,
then weary a little more. But hope deferred is still hope" (Robinson, Gilead
246). Robinson's language here not only references Provo 13: 12 but also
calls to mind Langston Hughes' "Harlem [21" in which Hughes asks, "What
happens to a dream deferred?" (426). The poem also inspired Lorraine
Hansberry to include it at the beginning of her play, A Raisill ill tile SI/II.

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CH RISTIANITY AND LITERATURE

which takes its title from Hughes' third line of the poem and became the
first play by an African American woman to win the Drama Desk Award.
Robinson's words become yet another renecting mirror as she reminds

readers of the histories around words and persons, and how those histories
exist whether or nol they can be remembered or understood. Robinson
does no! leave Ames impotent in participating in these histories, evell if
he does not comprehend his ability to do so. He goes on immediately to
write, "I love Ihis town. [ think sometimes of going into the ground here as
a last wild gesture of love- I too will smolder away the time until the great
and general incandescence" (247). Thus, Ames is empowered with love, the
commandment of the gospel, to love his neighbor as himself, and Ames,
in the end, is able to feel that love. And for Robinson, love "is probably a
synonym for grace" (Robinson, "Further Thoughts" 488). Gilead may not
be the city on the hill, but Ames' final vision of it offers hope that people
could attain peace and grace in a new world and perhaps reflect some of
that future in the present. Ames is able to see and express his desire to offer
this "wild gesture of love" as he moves beyond the place Ihat most needs it.
It's easy to get bitter and resentful toward God like the Israelites Jeremiah
describes when people endure unceasing pain and incurable wounds. Jack,
with his doubts and his interminable suffering, epitomizes this waiting and
hoping state of humanity. Ames, on the other hand, knows he is 011 the
verge of exiling this world and is able to have a glimpse of the perspective of
leavi ng it behind.
Before that last moment, however, Ames has suffered with his ailing
heart and has already mourned the lossofhis wife and son when he imagines
Jack came home to take over his family. The suflering human, blinded by
pain, often misperceives God's intentions. In Jeremiah, God promises to
deliver the Israelites out of the hands of their enemies and to restore them
to him. If sinners return and repent, God will restore them and save them
and deliver them from what ails them. A righteous end would be payment
for sins, but God does not hold sin against the sinner who believes in Christ
and repents, who receives the "free grace of forgiveness" Boughton has
struggled with comprehending (Gilead 190). Believers, in turn, are filled
with a burning desire from the Holy Spirit to go Ollt and tell olhers so they,
too, can experience the same love and righteollsness. One day. and that day
comes soon for John Ames, believers will see and know God fully. no more
lenses, but face-to-face. Ames describes the phenomenon:

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273

If the Lord chooses to make nothing of our transgressions, then they are
nothing. Or whatever reality they have is trivial and conditional beside
the exquisite primary fact of existence. Of course the Lord would wipe
them away, just as [ wipe dirt from your face, or lears. After all, why
should the Lord bother much over these smirches that are no part of
His Creation? ([90)

So, in Robinson's vision, being becomes more significant than how one is
being. Existence itselfis a miracle and part of tile celebration of the mystery
of God's grace.
Just as fire destroys in order to create energy, each bit of knowledge
and grace subverts the old to make the new. God's grace both crucifies and
creates a new self. As Vera J. Camden explains, "The anguish of men like
Luther and Bunyan-and many believers-is that the lived experience of
this paradox enforces a terrifying abjection, as the old self must be both
rejected and retained, the new self both embraced and anticipated."6
Perhaps subverting his old self to make way for a transformed self who
can connect with his son is part of what Ames hopes to do in writing this
letter. Certain ly, Ames comes close 10 transforming the sparks of fire. the
often misguided energies toward God's will: "The idea of grace had been so
much on my mind, grace as a sort of ecstatic fire that takes things down to
essentials" (Gilead 197). As Betty Mensch notes in her revie\'/ of Gilead and
JOllathall Edwards: A Life, Ames is a man who "once wrote a fiery Edwardslike sermon" and then "felt ridiculous:' which moved him toward "(I losing
his habits of judgment" (237). 1hat sermon is missing from the box in the
attic. Ames explains th,lI it is one he "actually burned the night before (hel
meant to preach it" (Gilead 41). He now regrets that it is lost: "I wish [had
kept it, because J meant every word. It might have been the only sermon
I wouldn't mind answering for in the next world. And I burned it" (43.)
Perhaps burning the sermon and haVing it only in his memory helps Ames
to imagine that it may have been a sermon to be proud of, one that may
have accomplished something worthy of God's attention. The fiery sermon
ends up in a fire, and only the fire which destroyed the sermon can make
the idea of the sermon one that might be somehow godly. The sermon
itself, however, focused only on humanity's damned nature, which is why
Ames burned it-to keep from hurting his congregation with more guih
and shame. Again, Robinson layers meanings offire to illustrate the human
cond ition and its inability to come to God on its own. Mensch reminds us
of the [ayers of contraries that are built into the entire town of Gilead and

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CHRIST I AN IT Y AND L IT ERATURE

that "in scripture, Gilead is origin of prophecy, source of refuge, but also
object of prophetic condemnation" (237). Robinson embraces purifying
destruction and its promise of restoration and salvation in the city on the
hill, and she also encompasses a transcendent humanity. Such transcendent
hope comes not only from the sentiment of Ames' narrative, but also from
voices displaced into the margins of the text. While Ames looks forward
with hope to imminent transformations, Jack waits in the desert of time
before the civil rights movement. Even further oul in the margins are the
histories of the African -Americans who were enslaved.
Ames does not address it, but Robinson's title rings of the AfricanAmerican spiritual, "There Is a Balm in Gi lead";
There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sin -sick soul
Sometimes [ feel discouraged
And think my work's in vain
But then the Holy Spirit
Revives my soul again
Don't e\'cr feel discouraged
For Jesus is your friend
And if you lack of knowledge
He'll ne'er refuse to lend
If you cannot preach like Peter
If you cannot pray like Paul
You can tell the love of Jesus
And say, "He died for all." (negrospirituals.com)
Gilead is mentioned twice in Jeremiah, both times in reference to its healing
balm. The spiritual lyrics end with a c<lllto w it ness, which is the legacy of
the jeremiad that promises the new covenant in the messiah. As Michael
Dirda indicates:
Gilead is a land east of the Jordan traditionally viewed as the source
of a healing salve: the balm of Gilead. But in the Old Testament this
same region carries less pacific associations as well and is sometimes
described as a place of war, bloodshed and iniquity. The word Gilead
is also linked - through a folk etymology- with the idea of witnessing.
(BW 15)

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275

The healing balm of Gilead is close to the novel's foundation, one built
on recognizing the histories of strife and suffering in individuals and
communities, and one that transcends those struggles to celebrate the
loving connection in the f\llfillment of God's promise. Ames reaches thai
promise, or Promised Land, at his death, but he also offers hope for the
dream of harmony to become part of Gilead for his son and the generations
to come. In "Facing Reality~ Robinson suggests that to a large extent in
our present culture "the sense of sickness has replaced the sense of sin, to
which it was always near allied" (Death of Adam 83). She notes that some
antebellum doctors identified "an illness typical of enslaved people sold
away from their families which anyone can recognize as rage and grief" (83).
Surely this sin-sickness is the same type she describes in the plots of Gilead
and Home, each burdened with the disconnectedness of humanity, most
overtly in Jack's painful inability to find a place where he can live happily
together with his wife and chi ld. At the end of "Facing Reality:' Robinson
asks what would happen "if we understood our vulnerabilities to mean we
are human, and so are our friends and our enemies, and so are our cities and
books and gardens, our inspirations, our errors. We weep human tears, like
Hamlet. like Hecuba" (Adam 86). Read in this light. sin is no less painful,
sins such as slavery and racism are no less evil, and misjudging is no less
wrong; however. all sins are forgivable. even those that hurt most. Gilead
asks readers to understand and to forgive themselves, their loved ones, and
their enemies, and to rejoice in the beautiful humanity that can be found in
all people and all places, just as Ames so beautifully records himself doing
at the end of his letter.
I experienced a practical example of the novel's message when I used
Gilead in a composition class at a college that was experiencing a hostile
racial environment. During the class in which I introduced the lyrics and
music of "There Is a Balm in Gilead," my students, both black and while.
actually broke out into song, waved their arms above their heads, and leaned
their bodies back and forth as they sang the spiritual together. They repeated
the song until every student~including Christ ians. Buddhists, agnost ics,
atheists, and others without religious labels- was singing as one, moving
with the rhythm of the music and participating in the sea of hands and
weaving. Like Ames, I may have misread that classroom moment, wanting
so much to believe in the good and the healing. But, in that moment, unity
and love did exist. Olhers may not const ruct their memory of that class

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CHRIST I ANITY AND L I TERATURE

the same way I do, but my memory of it is one of a mysterious uplifting

happiness. Robinson's novel asks readers to seek that kind of transcendent
joy, to look through a tens of love and acceptance and communion to strive
to see the good, the beauty. and the love, with whatever it takes to see that,
be it forgiveness. camaraderie, sol idarity, anything that allows a harmonious
community to transcend enmity between people, the iniquities thaI cause
rifts and morc sins against one another. Through Ames' celebration of
being, Gilead offers readers a hope of balm for issues that cut as deeply as
racial prejudice, a hope that all of us might understand ourselves and our
neighbors better, as we move toward communities of harmony.
Perhaps my students and I experienced a literary work's power 10 move
readers beyond its text, as Ann Hu lbert found herself moved at the end
of the novel. In her Slate review, Hulbert commenls on Robinson's final
sentiment: "What elicits tears at the book's close, I think, is a highly unusual
literary experience: Robinson (in her role as author of this creat ion) allows
even a faithless reader to feel the possibility of a transcendent order. thanks
to which mercy can reign among people on Earth" (Hulbert).' Robinson
offers in Ames a hope of finding a way to unite all people and of valu ing the
collective in his time of loss and mourning. The mystery and the beauty of
the collective is part of Ames' vision. Ames writes:
In every important way we are such secrets from each other, and I do
believe that there is a separate language in each of us, also a separate
aesthetics and a separate jurisprudence. Every Single one of us is a little
civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civil izations ...
all that reaUy just aUows us to coexist with the inviolable, untraversable,
and utterly vast spaces between us. (Gilead 197)

The space between our sepa rate bodies of laws, separate understandings
of truth and beauty, and our separate guilt and pains and sufferings all
come together in a transcendent understanding of the mystery of being and
how people exist at all, each person wi th his or her own "endless letter" of
memories, experiences, histories, desires, hopes, and dreams.
The separation itself becomes part of the solution instead of only the
problem; the inability to understand becomes part of the impetus to work
toward understanding. Ames remarks, " I don't know why solitude would
be a balm for loneliness, but Ihat is how it always was for me in those
days" (Gilead 18-19). Ames' description of this paradox leads the reader to
Robinson's vision of transcendence. When human beings come together,

RACE AND THEOLOGY IN GILEAD

277

as Ames is with Lila and their son, as Ames is with Boughton, as Ames is
with Jack, the distance between them is pronounced. The inability of human
beings to understand one another is painfully obvious. When alone, as Ames
is when he writes his letter, people can feel less lonely, because they are not
phYSically confronted with the terrible chasms of misunderstanding and
confusion between them, like the chasm between Ames' grandfather and
his father, like the chasm between Jack and his family. Ames' grandfather's
grave even holds the image of a chasm, as Ames says: "It was that most
natural thing in the world that my grandfather's grave would look like a
place where someone had tried to smother a fire" (SO). The presence of
physical bodies makes the space between them stand out in sharp relief.
When alone, individuals can imagine through the constructs of memory
that they touched someone, the way Ames believes his father touched him
with the ashy communion biscuit, the way Ames hopes to connect with his
son over the years, and the way Ames purports to connect with "his !lock."
As he explains to the reader, "This habit of writing is so deep in me, as
you will know well enough if this endless letter is in your hands" (Gilead
40). Although he cannot phYSically or literally span lime. Ames hopes his
record of thoughts and memories and love can reach his son through this
letter, full of both mourning over the fact that his life only eclipses his son's,
and full of hope that he can express what he intends to his son. Ames tells
his reader, "For me, writing has always felt like praying, even when I wasn't
writing prayers, as I was often enough. You feel like you are with someone"
(J 9). Perhaps one reason Ames writes as if he were praying is because he
faces such a great challenge in attempting to communicate with his son
and because he wants so badly for his communication to be Significant and
profound, a way to share thoughts about his life, his loves, and his values.
In Robinson's Christian vision, it seems one does not have to articulate
one's beliefs clearly, or even at all, in order to be saved. Just as fire can both
destroy and create anew, words can both damage people and help move
them toward understanding. Ames repeatedly comments on ways Lila is
not very articulate, and he recognizes that she is embarrassed by her poor
grammar and usage. On the other hand, he often also exclaims how well
she can articulate some of the deepest most complex ideas, especially those
about her salvation. In Home, Gilead's companion text about the same
characters from a different perspective set in the Boughton hOllse, Robinson
develops further the parable of the prodigal son which she begins in Gilead
to illustrate that, unlike the Puritan belief in the elect and one's assurance
of that position through one's articulation of one's beliefs, all are invited to
come 10 the river, not only those who attempt to articulate clearly the path

278

CHRISTI AN ITY AND L I TERATURE

10 get there. In Gilead, Robi nson uses Ames' voice to express with erudi te
fervor and from wise experience the ways a Christian lives in a world filled
with both menace and hope and is paradoxically saved not by his or her
own actions but passively by the very nature of God's grace.
When fire imagery interplays with racial conflicts in the civil rights era
in this novel, it reveals disconnects between characters and ideas, especially
between characters who long to be toget her, such as Ames and Robert, as
well as Jack and both his families. Robi nson reflects in a varietyo( characters
the desire to be understood. Just as Ames repeatedly wishes his son Robert
can understand and can see what he means, so his namesake, Jack, also
wishes he could be seen and understood. Ultimately, Ames offers hope for
understanding as a spiritual fire that is present in all: "When people come
to speak to me, whatever they say. I am struck by a kind of incandescence
in them, the 'J' like a flame on a wick, emanating itself in grief and guilt and
joy and whatever else" (Gilead 44-45). Here, fire re-presents the Christlike
qualities Ames seeks to model in his behavior. It seems simplistic to sllggest
that Ames is witnessing, but just like the spiritua l, "There Is a Balm in
Gilead:' Ames dips into his own civilizatio n and unites with all the other
fiery wicks to glow together in a spiritual incandescence of jere miad ic
drama~a perpetual destruction and reconstruction, with all the mystery
ofils inex pl icable separation and restoration. Robinson's use offire imagery
to illustrate the conflicti ng mysteries of both a doomed and suffering world
as well as the fervent gospel of divine grace helps build her C hristian vision,
which, in Gilead, glories in the lamentations of human existence and the
hope of fulfilling the meani ng of that existence with the promise of a new
covenant, one which becomes miraculous in the very fact that it exists.

Indiana UniverSity-Purdue University Columbus

NOTES
'For an overview of research on the Holy Spirit, see Hinze and Dabney's Ad\'ellls
oflhe Spirit. George T Montague's ch3pter, ~The Fire in the Word: The Holy Spirit
in Scriptu re" offers a summary of ways the Holy Spirit is represented in biblic3l
images. He lists the Holy Spirit's appear3nces 3S fire, which culminate in Pentecost
(40).

lAs Robinson uses 1956 conventions for referring to this congregation,

so J preserve the use of "Negro" when referring to this congregation and her
characters.
)While J do not have space to build the argument here, I see Gilead as ajeremiad

RACE AND THEOl.OGY IN GILEAD

279

in the double sense, both a long letter of complaint and mourning which culminates
in transcendence, and as a novel that participates in the tradition of the American
Jeremiad, defined and developed by Perry Miller in TIle Nell' ElIglami Milld; from
CololIY to Provillce and Sacvan Bercovitch's TI,e Americall Jeremiad. For a general
survey of Puritan writings, see Emory Elliot's "/Ie Cambridge Introduction to Ear/y
American Literature, and note page 16 of his introduction where he concisely
defines the jeremiad within the larger traditions. See also Betty Mensch's review
of Gilead and George M. Marsden's biography of Jonathan Edwards in which she
traces ways Gilead is about Edwards and relates to his "objective reality:' I am not
trying to engage fully the sermon genre of the jeremiad in this essay, but I do wish
to use it to help me suggest a connection between the fire imagery and the spiritual
meanings of the novel.
' For an analysis of the myth of the jeremiad for African Americans, see David
Howard-Pitney, TI,e Afro-AmericclIJ Jeremiad; Appell/sfor Juslice ill America.
sSacvan Bercovitch \."rites, "Replica or mirror-reflection , representation or
re-presentation: the "or~ makes all the difference in the world. More precisely, it
marks the difference between this world and the next. And yet the two kinds of
speech are as close as "like" and "alike." They are complementary pieces in the
same game, like rook and bishop. They work together on the premise that their
functions are distinct. [n order to make this as clear as possible, Church authorities
from Augustine through Aqu inas made that distinction (representation or re
presentation) a central tenet of Christian hermeneutics. By that rule Luther denied
the Pope's right to stand in for Christ. The Holy Roman Empire, he charged, was
a replica of the true church, not a re-presentation of it. The fact that it claimed to
re-present the true church made it a fa lse replica, hence the Antichrist incarnate.
By that rule, too, Milton justified regicide by appealing directly to Christ, the true
mirror-reflection of God as king as Charles [ (in his view) was emphatically not.
The fact that Charles claimed divine right disqualified him as representative of
heaven's king. It is not too much to say that the hermeneutics of like-versus alike
became a vehicle of theological and social transformation. Understandably, the
Reformers were charged with blasphemy -- appropriately they called themselves
Protest ants, Dissenters -- but so far as they were concerned, they had come to fulfill
the exegetical law, not to break it" CA Mode[ ofCu[tura! Transva[uation~).
6Camden points to Julia Kristeva's revisions of Jaques Lacan to support the
paradox.
' Not all reviewers find Gilead inspirational or transcendent. In his review for
the Seallle TImes, Robert Allen Papinchak calls Ames one-dimensional and his
narrative bland and unengaging.

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Title: Fraught with Fire: Race and Theology in Marilynne Robinson's Gilead
Source: Christ Lit 59 no2 Wint 2010 265-80
ISSN: 0148-3331
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