CARACTERÍSTICAS DE Liorhyssus hyalinus (F)

A collection of characters stands opposed to the church. Sometimes, these mockers and despisers are able to tell us more about the Christian life than any other group of characters in James’s novels. Within the group of outsiders there are those who light-heartedly resist the religious. This collection of characters may never be violent towards Christians or Christianity, but through subtle criticism they make their opposition known. Ursula and Barbara Berowne from A Taste for Death are examples of this type of outsider. As family members to Paul Berowne, the man who converted to Christianity, both ridiculed his conversion. Ursula even goes so far as to mock Father Barnes, the priest who visits her to offer condolences for her dead son. Neither of these characters would commit violence against a Christian, yet their lack of understanding of or concern for Christianity is demonstrated as disdain.

A more extreme set of characters who oppose Christianity exists, however. These characters are outright hostile to the church. They will go as far as to perform violence against or even to kill those who are representatives of Christianity.

Hilary Robarts is a complicated character on the outside of the church, whose actions still lead readers towards spiritual thoughts. Although she is killed in the first half of Devices and Desires, the readers learn a great deal about her qualities through descriptions of her, mostly critical, by her contemporaries. Everyone who knew Robarts had a reason to dislike her. There is Jonathon Reeves who is humiliated by Robarts at work by her mockery of his Christian faith and Alex Mair who Robarts pressured to marry her once she was pregnant with his child.

Robarts feels no remorse for the suffering she causes others and is a fairly unsympathetic character. Yet, in typical James fashion, the author creates a scene of

redemption for this character moments before her death. On her evening swim, Robarts floats into the ocean and embraces a remarkable joy and peace. Robarts, an atheist, is unable to put this experience of ecstasy and serenity into spiritual terms. However, she recognizes that her life must change and decides:

That part of her life was coming to an end. Everything was possible. And then, for a moment, there came a deeper peace in which even none of this mattered. It was as if all the petty preoccupations of the flesh were washed away and she was a disembodied spirit, floating free, and could feel a gentle, undemanding sorrow for this earth-ground creature who could find only in an alien element this sweet but transitory peace.131

Robarts is not a Christian, yet this scene in the water imitates a baptismal scene. There is no Christian terminology to describe this experience, yet James sets up this scene to demonstrate an awareness of conversion. Robarts certainly does not have the Christian terminology to describe what is beginning within her, and she may not fully comprehend that a conversion is what she is experiencing. The dip under water, the resurfacing with new life, the awareness of the spirit are all too obvious symbols for the reader to ignore. It would seem that James is baptizing her character. Tragically, Robarts is murdered in the next chapter.

Death of an Expert Witness introduces several characters who oppose the church and whose actions against it actually demonstrate some of the church’s strengths. Kerrison and Domenica are involved in affair. Spurred by jealousy and fury, Kerrison murders a fellow scientist, Lorrimer, who was a former lover of Domenica. Neither Kerrison nor Domenica is a Christian; yet the actions of both of these characters cause readers to reflect upon the Church and its power (or loss thereof) throughout the novel.

From the moment the first body is discovered in the forensic laboratory, the reader is made aware that there is a religious element to the murder. Lorrimer, a Christian who worked in the lab, is found murdered in the lab. His body is discovered in a strange, religious distortion alongside two dummies. The dummies are posed in a “parody of benediction,” with the “look of a couple of painted deities. At their feet, a white-clad sacrificial victim, was the body.”132 _{Kerrison mocks Lorrimer and his}

religious devotion. Even in death, he portrays him as an impotent sacrifice for a dumb deity. To Kerrison, Lorrimer’s life was wasted in devotion and, therefore, his death is a waste as well.

Domenica’s role in the desecration of Lorrimer was less physically violent, yet similarly destructive. Domenica and Lorrimer (as well as Domenica and Kerrison) carried on an affair in the chapel. For Lorrimer, this act was a desecration of a holy place from which he did not recover. For Domenica, this desecration is part of the enjoyment in her seduction.

James uses all three of these characters to bring her readers into an awareness of religion and the varying attitudes people can maintain towards it. By casually incorporating spirituality into the lives of these three characters in varying degrees of devotion, guilt, and wantonness, James is able to reflect realistically how religion is experienced and expressed through relationships and work tensions.

Numerous other examples of characters who oppose the church and Christians exist in the novels of James. There is Gabriel Dauntsey who quotes Old Testament scripture to justify his murders in Original Sin. In Death in Holy Orders, Gregory kills several priests simply to insure that his son will have an inheritance. Several

other examples remain to be discussed, but we will further explore those who demonstrate a violent opposition to church in the fourth chapter.