Volume 16 Number 1 Article 4 Fall 10-15-1989 To Live From a New Root’: The Uneasy Consolation of All Hallows’ Eve Marlene Marie McKinley Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation McKinley, Marlene Marie (1989) "To Live From a New Root’: The Uneasy Consolation of All Hallows’ Eve," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 16 : No. 1 , Article 4. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol16/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Analyzes Williams’s view of love in All Hallows’ Eve, noting the challenging and disquieting notion of giving up earthly attachments and definitions of the phrase to “live from a new root.” Additional Keywords Death in All Hallows’ Eve; Life after death in All Hallows’ Eve; Love and death in All Hallows’ Eve; Williams, Charles. All Hallows’ Eve This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol16/iss1/4 CPyTHLORe 59 Autumn 1989 'T o Live Frotd a Neiu Roor The Uneasy Consolation oF All Hallows Cve CDaRlene CDaRie CDcKinley * part from artistic values and other merits, the majority fears the worst: the weakening, decline, and finally death r \ o f literary works whose subject is death are efficacious­ of all her senses. Important in the progression of her ly salutary and even salubrious: by affirming life after thought and heightening fear of "dying further," selfish death and offering consolations of various sorts, they help love overcomes Lester. Given another opportunity to meet us to cope with and accept the death of a loved one as well Richard, she will not push him away as she had on as to overcome fears of mortality and the unknown Westminster Bridge; instead, she will "embrace" him, whereby we are able to confront and accept our own pulling him down into the bowels of the earth with her. If death.1 However, some of these works which are decided­ she is going to be a prisoner, then Richard will be a prisoner ly consolations of hope, faith, and love can also worry us too: "... a prisoner with her, and to her"! (89) These when they extend definitions and meanings of justice, thoughts are damning enough, but then Lester takes the love, the self, and so forth, which counter our own ex­ ultimate step: "If only he too would die and come!" (89)5 periences, ideas, and beliefs. In other words, unsettling us In the midst of her selfish love, her damnable sin, and is the discrepancy between our notions of what is and consequently in the midst of envisioning the horror of the should be (which the works show to be illusory or short­ Pit of Hell and herself, "both, being one" (89),6 Betty's sighted) and what, in fact, is. Therefore, consolatory as strong, clear voice once again calling out "Jonathan!" cuts they are, such works make demands on us - demands our through Lester's selfishness; choice is offered and is hers thinking, understanding, and experience - which can be to make: damnation or salvation. And in the ensuing inner not only quite disquieting and disarming, but frightening. dialogue ("Something in or out of her mind, said to her, And so it is with Charles Williams' All Hallows' Eve. 'Would it be unfair?'"[90J), Lester demonstrates the Though All Hallows' Eve most beautifully dramatizes the "courage and good sense native to her" in her answer, way of purgation and purification toward perfection of which she gives "with a new and holy shyness 'It would knowing Love and Union whereby we are consoled, some be perhaps extreme." Tt would be your own extreme,' the aspects of that way and its end expand beyond the known voice if it were a voice, continued. She said, 'Yes'" (90). As into the alien, wrenching us from our safe, comfortable the voice succinctly corrects Lester's words, placing the mode of thought and life. In short. All Hallows' Eve "pitches onus of "extreme" on Lester, Lester's '"Yes'" not only us out of ourselves,"2 especially as it amplifies Williams' conveys her acknowledgement of the truth of the voice's definition of Love: 'T o love is to die and live again; to live correction but also signals her choice in the decidedly from a new root" (HCD120). affirmative '"Yes."'7 Dramatizing "to live from a new root" is Lester, a Truly, Lester's faults and her virtues8, defined in her physically dead woman3 to whom Williams bonds us by relationship with her husband, make her one of us. But the making her one of us. Therefore, not the tale of a saintly husband-wife relationship does more; it pointedly and soul, such as Margaret (DH), All Hallows' Eve is "essen­ vividly conveys the utter sorrow and despair one suffers tially the tale of one soul, and that of anyone" (Hadfield by the death of and separation from a loved one, especially 228), a soul possessing faults and virtues. Although one's beloved, which Williams develops not only through Lester's character is exposed in a number of situations in physically alive Richard (the customary point of view in which she finds herself and in her relationship wi th Evelyn such works), but importantly through physically dead and Betty, it is her relationship with her husband which Lester, an unusual point of view, allowing Williams to clearly defines her character, her idea of love, and then her explore facets of eschatology9 and to penetrate psychologi­ progress.4 For example, at the beginning of the novel her cal and spiritual states of the dead whereby in exposing initial concept of love is provided in the statement that her intense grief Williams unites us, sympathetically and Lester's " . .. willingness to commit herself with Richard... empathetically, with Lester. Examples of her suffering are made her believe she (as she called it) loved Richard..." plentiful even in the first chapter: her great pain when she (9-10), Williams' parenthetical comment voicing the truth. realizes that she is separated from Richard forever; her Indeed, since she does not love others - she cares about painful acknowledgement that she is alone is responsible and is interested in "gadgets" and other material things, for Richard's disappearance; and then the sharp pang of not people - her relationship with Richard is flawed. In separation and of death that seizes her - a pang which short, she is not yet "adult in love," made critically clear in recurs throughout the novel. Moreover, though Lester's Chapter 4 when hearing Betty's voice gloriously calling initial concept of love is surely deficient, her grief and out Jonathan's name, Lester, filled with love for Richard, suffering quicken the redemptive process, altering her calls out his name. But instead of a strong voice, Lester knowledge of Love. Thus, in our identification with Lester, Page 1 4 __________________ Autumn 1989 CPyTHLORe 59 we too undergo the process of discovering the meaning of is "different." But through Lester's vision of the City, her love - a process which begins with comforting reassuran­ vision of the Thames River, and then through the Acts' ces. purging, we grow progressively apprehensive about the Of the more striking scenes confirming our ideas about meaning of "to live from a new root." death and the death of the beloved is one which occurs First, Lester's vision of the City is strangely beautiful: during Lester's intermediary stages of learning Love when simultaneity is presented with the "glowing and glimmer­ Lester's penitence for her former behavior toward Betty, ing City, of which the life was visible as a roseal wonder culminating in her substitution of Betty, earns Lester within" (187). And here Williams hints at what Lester's another meeting with Richard. No longer the impatient, future involvement in Love will bring, suggesting, for angry Lester who pushed Richard away on Westminster example, that out happiest moments on earth are but a Bridge at the beginning of the novel; no longer the selfish norm there.11 Though the City may jar our chronological Lester who wished him dead; Lester now meets her hus­ sense of time and our geographical sense of place, the City band with joy. and citizenship of that City beckon us to know Love, Her [Richard] added, across the room to Lester, without reinforcing our sense of justice and reward in the Other surprise, but with a rush of apology, and only he knew World. Further, though we realize that Lester's citizenship to whom he spoke, "Darling, have I kept you waiting? means advancing from the transitional dimension she I'm so sorry." presently inhabits and separating her from her husband Lester saw him.