The mystery and drama of this novel lie in the tortured,love-hate relationship between Jack and Ames. A perverse kind of bond exists; each dislikes the other while needing the other's approval. According to Ames' belief, Jack and himself are meant for each other, destined to rely on the other for salvation.
Their relationship is a father and son one. Jack calls Ames "Papa." Perhaps according to Jack's intentions, Ames bristles at Jack's referring to him in this way. However, at some level, it is true in fact. Ames is Jack's godfather; being a believer, Ames takes the role seriously. As Jack's godfather, Ames feels an obligation to his soul and worries that he has failed him.
Boughton had the child christened in Ames' name as a gesture of love and thanksgiving toward his best friend. It was to be a gift revealed to Ames when he asked the baby's name prior to christening him. This well intended gesture misfires horribly. Ames is taken aback by it. Since losing his own short-lived, tragedy marked immediate family, Ames has envied Boughton his large and prospering one. In the face of the disparity between them, Ames is defensive around Boughton and his family. He is sensitive to any suggestion that somehow his now gone immediate family is or was a lesser blessing than Boughton's large and flourishing one.
While Ames might be too polite to say so to himself or God, he clearly reads the disparity between his family and Boughton's as an injustice. Such injustice doesn't square with his beliefs. To shelter these, Ames simply refuses to think of the situation as a disparity, an injustice, and denies his anger at God.
His anger seems to find its locus in Jack from the boy is christened in his name. Ames claims that when he first hears of Boughton's gesture at the boy's christening, it wasn't "resentment I felt then. It was some sort of loyalty to my own life"(65).
With time, Ames' resentment and distrust of Jack gathers real reasons. Jack is a troubled kid who from an early age enjoys annoying others by engaging in senseless acts of vandalism and theft. Then, while in college, Jack impregnates a very young girl and refuses to deal with the situation. He neglects the child and its mother. Indirectly, his neglect leads to the child's death. As Ames must see it, even if unconsciously, Jack is given and wastes a blessing denied Boughton. He compounds his sin by showing little remorse. However irrational it might be, Ames views Jack's misdeed as an affront to himself. Moreover, he commits a sin that touches directly on the great hurt of Ames' life, and puts to the test Ames' ability to show Christian forgiveness.
As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that Jack is the cross of Ames' life. Until he returns, Jack is a cross from the past that seemed past, and a cross that Ames contrived to forget. When Glory mentions early on to Ames that "Jack might be coming home...It actually took me a minute to think who that was" (18). When it comes to Jack, Ames is wary and defensive; his attitude seems to be one of "please, let this cup pass." Yet, Jack is truly Ames'cup.
Ames is a rather saintly soul on one level; however, as he himself fears, his has been a rather cloistered holiness. When Jack returns, seeking forgiveness, comfort and refuge, he brings Ames' another cross. Ames seeks to see and thus love others as God sees and loves them. His path to sainthood, his holiness has one obstacle: his distinctly unchristian feelings toward Jack.
Although he's central to Ames and his life-story, Ames first mentions Jack on page 72. Jack's sister Glory stops by to tell him Jack is returning. Glory is "excited and also anxious"(72). Ames hardly shares in her emotions; he laments "I suppose he'll appear sooner or later"(72). Everything Ames says in this first mention of Jack is demeaning; his every word seems contrived to render him unimportant. Ames first refers to him as a boy and then "corrects" himself. He feigns uncertainty as to whether he's in his thirties or forties. He makes passing allusion to "a story" that he might relay. Then decides he'll first "talk with [Jack]" and then decide if "all that trouble is well forgotten"(72).
Jack has come home 86-87
Jack "paid a call." "I have never felt he was fond of me."91 Ames' wife is "visibly surprised" to meet this namesake of her husband which leads Jack to conclude "'I gather bygones are not bygones yet, Reverend.' What a thing to say!"91-92.
"'You're looking wonderful, Papa!' he said, and I thought, ...the first words out of his mouth would have to be prevarication." Ames is sitting in a porch swing. He experiences difficulty getting up; "there was Jack Boughton with that look on his face, lifting me onto my feet by my elbow. And I swear it was as if I had stepped right into a hole, he was so much taller than I than he'd ever been before"(92). Figurative rendering of the way Jack somehow lessens Ames perception of himself. Jack brings out something in Ames that his wife and child see clearly; "I caught a look on your mother's face and yours, too, which I know could not have been because of the contrast we made. You didn't wait till this morning to realize that I am old. I don't know what it was I saw, and I'm not going to think about it anymore. It didn't sit well with me"(93-94). Jack "couldn't stay for coffee. Things went well enough. Then he was off"(94).
In this meeting, the recording of the fact that Jack "really is the spiting image of his father in terms of physical likeness"93.
Next, Ames comes home and discover his son and Jack playing catch.101 At the tail end of this encounter, mention again of the likeness between Boughton the father and Boughton the son, Jack: "This Jack Boughton could be his father, to look at him"(102).
Ames goes to ostensibly visit old Boughton. Jack and his sister Glory are working in the yard. Boughton is "in excellent spirits. 'The children,' he said, 'are putting things to rights for me.'"(116)
In two criticism/comments that seems ideally self-directed, Ames writes "I have always like the phrase 'nursing a grudge,' because many people are tender of their resentments, as of the thing nearest their hearts."(117) Next, "I always imagine divine mercy giving us back to ourselves and letting us laugh at what we became, laugh at the preposterous disguises of crouch and squint and limp and lour we all do put on."117-118
Jack comes by to see if Ames' son wishes to play catch. Always looking to dismantle any positive aspect as simply appearance, Ames notes "[Jack] was sunburned from working in the garden. It gave him a healthy, honest look." Neither offering his invitation nor his feelings at its rejection, Ames simply states, "[Jack] said he couldn't stay for supper. You were disappointed, as I believe your mother was also."119
Jack comes "strolling by" again, shortly afterward. "He sat himself down on the porch and talked baseball and politics-he favors the Yankees, which he has every right to do-until the fragrance of macaroni and cheese so obtruded itself that I was obliged to invite him in."119-120
Again, betraying by his language his reluctance to believe in Jack's integrity, Ames observes Jack during supper and writes of "this [my italics] John Ames Boughton with his quiet voice and preacherly manner, which, by the way, he has done nothing to earn, or to deserve. To the best of my knowledge at any rate. He had it even as a child, and I always found that disturbing. ...it seems to me sometimes that there's an element of parody in it."120 "Of sheer and perfect preacherliness I have never seen a finer example than this Jack Boughton, heathen that he is, or was." During his visit to Ames, Jack "mentioned that [Ames] had not been to see his father in a few days, which is the truth, and no coincidence either...it had been one of the gret irritations of my life, seeing the two of them together."120
Ames fills in the back story on Jack in a roundabout fashion. He realizes that he bears a grudge against Jack and wonders and worries that he is not being fair. Perhaps, he's holding overlong to past hurts. A vain man, Ames worries that he's acting in a manner unbecoming to himself. This worry surfaced earlier on when he noted the way his son and wife looked at him when he was talking with Jack earlier.
Conscious of appearing petty and unforgiving, he is hesitant to simply dish the dirt on Jack to his family. He admits "[Jack's] story may be more than you need to know, more than I ought to tell you. If things have come right, what is the point. There's nothing very remarkable in the story, in fact it is very commonplace. Which is not an extenuation by any means."121
While he seems to be losing control of his own manners, Ames complains "[Jack's] so respectctful I feel like telling him I'm not the oldest man in the world yet."(122)
Yet, around Jack, basic manners become a conscious effort: "Young Boughton came by again this morning...I'm trying to be a little more cordial to him than I have been...and he looks me right in the face, as though he wants me to know he knows it is a perfomance and he's amused by it...Most people will go along with you in these situations, whatever their private thoughts might be"(123). Then, using an expression he applies to Jack on several occasions, he continues in oblique fashion: I hesitate to call it devilment, but it certainly does make me uncomfortable, and I'm fairly sure that is what he intends"(123).
Suggesting his possibly providential nature, Ames believes Jack can read his innermost thoughts. In Luke 12:2-3, Christ warns "there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops." Psalm 44 speaks to Ames' state as well: "If we had forgotten the name of our God [by failing to forgive or show mercy to Jack].../ Would not God have found this out? For he knows the secrets of the heart."
Unable to "somehow contrive to think graciously about him"(123), Ames goes off and prays. For Ames, praying often seems more a retreat from the world than an action upon it. On some level, Ames is alert to the possibility of jack's return being a piece of providence, a test, a divine reminder that he needs to put his too long untended soul in order. In fact, at one point, he "hopes there's some special providence in his turning up just when I have so many other things to deal with, because he is a considerable disruption when peace would have been especially appreciated"(122).
In an attempt to unravel the purpose in his providentially "turning up," Ames sermonizes:
"When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you....What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me...you are free to act by your own lights."(124)
Jack brings to light Ames' failings. A lack of graciousness.123
A persistent defensiveness; while confessing this fault, he underplays it: "I know I am touchy about some things"(122). Age is one of them. The very term touchy might be understatement. It is interesting to note how Ames and his wife are seemingly unable to find a way of communicating about Jack. One can easily surmise that she picks up on topics he's "touchy" about and simply avoids broaching them. Not only does this suggest a power imbalance at the heart of their relationship, it indicates that when it comes to sensitive topics, Ames is a bit more than "touchy" about them.
Jack also exposes Ames' hypocrisy and vanity. These qualities are apparent to the reader of his account. Sometimes, they reveal themselves in small ways. Thus, he admits in his account that he didn't "write the way I speak. I'm afraid you would think that I didn't know any better"(28). Although he protests otherwise, he's clearly hopeful that his wife will read and save the lifetime of sermons he's stored up in the attic. He mentions them repeatedly.
Ultimately though, Jack has over time become the locus for Ames' questioning of God; he would seem to be exhibit A in Ames' feeling that God is not fair. His existence and behavior throws Ames' very faith into question. When Ames speaks of how all the people we encounter are emissaries of the Lord, he goes on to describe them as benefits insofar as they allow us to "demonstrate...faithfulness"(124).
Again, Gilead is the prodigal son story with provocative twists. In the Gilead version, there aren't two brothers but two fathers. The one forgives an undeserving Jack. Yet, this fails to satisfy Jack. He seems to want and need the forgiveness and love of his other father, Ames. It is as if his own father's easy and immediate love and forgiveness is not enough for Jack. Ultimately, he wants to somehow justify and earn his forgiveness and love.
Again, the two seem destined for each other by providence, as if each were assigned to the other as a trial through which they will gain their salvation. It is not clear whether they pass it. When Ames' grandfather finally leaves his son and his family, he pens them a note detailing his reasons. Ames' father and grandfather have battled over the idea of nonviolence and peace their entire life without resolution. Rejecting his son's pacifism, Grandfather Ames expresses a sentiment which captures the unresolved situation between Ames and Jack at the end of the book: "No good has come, no evil is ended. That is your peace"(84-85).
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