Texts: Charles Williams, All Hallow’s Eve, Chapters VIII-X “The Magical Creation,” “Telephone Conversations,” and “The Acts of the City”
Discussion Leader: Student Facilitator et all.
Discussion Questions:
- Williams’s novel is disorienting; it oscillates between illusionary, indistinct language and the realism of everyday life in London during the 1940s. Those barriers become even less distinct towards the end of the novel, during which we see two of the narrative’s “ghosts” merge into one body and walk in the London of the living, a Foreign Office official implore Richard to persuade Father Simon in the war effort, Betty’s transformation or “unveiling,” and Sara Wallingford’s unwilling “sacrifice.” How does this novel work to create the same affective experience in the reader as say, Jonathan and Richard are experiencing within it? Is it an effective strategy, and does it change your approach to the text?
- Pay attention to the significance of water within these chapters. How do each of the characters interact with water, and what does this reveal about their inner states of being, their substance, or their spiritual state? Can you think of other sources in which water is either an illuminating or ambivalent force, such as other texts we’ve read, Biblical passages, or medieval literature? Does this influence your reading of waterways, rivers, lakes or other aqueous bodies in this work?
- Father Simon is able to split himself into “Types,” and it is suggested that these Types also occupy other states which are significant to the war effort. How might he be seen as emblematic of WWII leaders, or as a dangerous “cure” to a widespread cultural crisis? Are there any parallels to today’s leaders?
- What do you make of the different “selves” we get within Father Simon, Betty, Sara and the ghosts? Think back to last day’s question on the psyche or any relevant psychoanalytic theories.
- Consider the interplay of power, politics, deception and persuasion in this work. How does Williams depict the tenuous “dichotomy” between evil and good, devil and saint, magic and miracles, and compulsion versus compassion, or even life and death? What do you think he is revealing, or is himself struggling with, regarding the spiritual sources of power?
- What do you make of Sara Wallingford’s “sacrifice” or her “substitution,” and does it redeem her? What about the gendered depiction of consent, penetration-as-spiritual occupation or invasion, embodiment, or “sub-creation,” particularly when it comes to Betty’s conception and Father Simon’s two clay-mould dolls? Why is it that Betty is finally able to become “herself” when she meets her nurse, the woman who “Christened” her? Think about parenthood, ownership, the power of names/ un-naming (the root for “ignoble”), and the constant interplay between creation and corruption of what has already been created.
