Texts: Charles Williams, All Hallow’s Eve (Chapters IV-V “The Dream,” “The Hall by Holborn” and Chapters V-VI “The Wise Water,” “The Magical Sacrifice”)
Discussion Question Leader: Student Facilitator et all.
Discussion Questions:
- Williams’s idea of Romantic Theology is founded on the idea that “ascent to God can be achieved in and through created things, and specifically in and through (heterosexual) love.” He also believed that it was a “flawed” conduit to the divine, obscured as it is by egoism, self-consciousness, power and sexual desire; how are these two models expressed through the relationships in All Hallow’s Eve, and what can you glean from Williams’s theology from these relationships?
- What is Father Simon? Consider the differences and similarities between “magic,” “mysticism,” “occultism” and Christianity, or rather the “Divine Mysteries.” What does it mean to be a magician, a devil, or a holy man? How does Williams negotiate between the divine and the “blasphemous” through this duplicitous figure and his cult following?
- Williams strongly believed in the ability of “art to communicate,” and considered himself a “poet” above all his other pursuits; this suggests that he felt the lyrical, descriptive power of expressive language held far more profundity than narrative fiction. Consider All Hallow’s Eve not just as a novel about art but as a work of art; what is Williams trying to achieve through this work, or rather how do you experience it affectively, as a reader? How are these different perspectives on art articulated within the spaces that Williams has “composed,” both narratively and “visually” through his descriptions?
- Space has great significance in both Williams’s All Hallows Eve and Lewis’s The Great Divorce, and tells a lot more about the people who dwell within it than they understand themselves. Compare the spaces of “limbo,” the City, “Hell,” the Plains, “Heaven” and the Mountains/ Hills within these two works. How do they contribute to the narrative, and what kind of cosmology are they constructing? What are the implicit values or theological ideas underpinning these spaces, and how do they effect the people who occupy them? What do you make of this porous barrier between the “living” and the “dead” worlds?
- When Betty goes into the other place (the “upside-down,” “limbo,” or “the City”) she sees herself in her memories; standing from the outside, she is comforted by her own objective, critical distance. However, she is also the unwitting, blind emissary to Father Simon, who is able to literally split himself into different physical forms. Think of any psychoanalytic theories you might know about “the self,” or how you perceive your “self” within your own experience. What do you make of Williams’ consistent doubling or tripling of selves within this text? Do you see these as pieces of the psyche, spiritual/ demonic sides, or an inversion of the trinity?
- Consider the role of gender in Williams’s works, particularly as it pertains to power/ subordination and Teacher/ Pupil-Disciple relationships, as well as the “vessel” that Father Simon uses in both Lady Wallingford and Betty’s bodies. What do you make of Lady Wallingford’s rape scene, in opposition to divine conception? Why do you think it is Betty who is chosen to communicate with the dead? Consider the parallels between Betty and the “Jewish girl” or the Virgin Mary, as well as the “Wise Water” which delivered her to the “shores” of her nurse’s arms. Is she a deliverer, a redeemer, or merely a messenger?
