Spirit, Semiotics and the Occult in Charles Williams’s All Hallows Eve

Primary Texts:

  • Charles Williams, All Hallow’s Eve, Chapters I-III “The New Life,” “The Beetles,” “Clerk Simon”

Secondary Texts: 

  • Paul Fiddes, “Charles Williams and the Problem of Evil,” in C. S. Lewis and His Circle: Essays and Memoirs from the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society, edited by Roger White, Judith Wolfe, Brendan Wolfe (UBC Library online)
  • Ashley Marshall, “Reframing Charles Williams: Modernist Doubt and the Crisis of World War in ‘All Hallows’ Eve,’” Journal of Modern Literature (UBC Library online)

Discussion Leaders: Kienan Burrage et all. 

Discussion Questions:

Spirituality

  1. The world Williams creates is eerie and strange. In the text, the world of the spirit is simultaneous in some ways, and overlaps the ‘real, physical’ world. How is the ‘spirit world’ functioning in this text? (“with that departure, the room again became a room, and no more the outskirts or another world” 43)
  2. In relation to the spirit world, language and especially names take on strange significance. Think about the meanings behind language. Names as holding mystical power, Lester only really knowing the word Richard? Uttering the name of God?
  3. Adam Fox, in an interview, claimed that all of the Inklings had a tendency to the Occult. Does All Hallow’s Eve open your eyes to about the occult influence in other Inkling’s work?
  4. Are there connections we can draw between this work and other works (either of the Inklings or elsewhere) in relation to spirituality and the mystical power of language/names?

Art/Light

  1. Simon the Clerk claims ‘Art is Apostolic’, what does this mean?
  2. Art plays a huge role in this text so far, painting reveals truths far deeper than people can even comprehend. What and how does art work according to Williams?
  3. Light plays a huge role linguistically and thematically in this work so far.
    1. Death is a constant twilight/night state, what does this signify?
    2. The paintings, “light that had become amber in order to become wood” (27), Jonathan is attempting to “paint the massiveness of light” (29). Everything is made of light, or at least that is what Richard claims. What does this mean? What are the implications of this?

About Kathryn Ney

I am a Teacher Candidate in the Bachelor of Education Program (Secondary) with two teachable subjects, Social Studies and English. I graduated from the Global Stewardship Program at Capilano University in 2014 and completed a double major at UBC in English Literature Honours and History in November 2018. During my studies at CapU, I volunteered as an English teacher with the Global Volunteer Network in Nepal and this experience first prompted me to consider a career in education. While studying at UBC, I led a Student Directed Seminar on the Inklings (Tolkien and C.S. Lewis), thus enabling me to gain experience designing syllabi and marking rubrics for peer evaluation. I am also an alumni of the UBC Arts Coop program, through which I predominantly worked as a docent and archivist in the culture and heritage industry. Some of my work during my Coop placements included developing educational programs for museums, and through this experience, I learned how to make history engaging and accessible for young people as well as for the general public. I spent the past year participating in the Odyssey Program as an English Language Assistant in small-town Quebec, during which time I gleaned extensive in-class and interpersonal experience working with both kids and young adults on their English skills. Since my return in May, I have been leading summer camps for youth focused on conservation issues and outdoor skills. This experience allowed me to share my love of nature and the environment with young people from across the province. Ideally, after completing the BEd. program and having gained some teaching experience, I would like to find a way to combine these disciplines and interests in the form of extracurricular involvement, or otherwise to work abroad doing professional or curriculum development for teachers in developing countries.
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