Quest of the Spirit: From Suffering to Acceptance

6.6 Part IV: Overcoming Prejudice: Julien Green's Each Man in His Darkness!

         In noted French writer Julien Green's Each Man in His Darkness ( 1960), Wilfred, like the hero in Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, serves as a kind of prophet who inspires faith and love in all he meets: Angus, Tommy, Max, Phoebe, Mr. Schoenhals, and even Mr. Knight. Wilfred's quest for a metaphysical balance between the desires of the flesh and his faith in God lead him to inspire others, despite the enormous sense of guilt that overwhelms him as an existential traveler in a confusing world of misplaced values and ideals. In his quest for love and acceptance, the protagonist inwardly cries out for fulfillment through his relationships with the victims of society . . . the insane Max, the homosexual Angus, the lovelorn Phoebe, the hypocritical Mr. Knight, and even the recently deceased Uncle Horace whose amorous adventures in his youth foreshadow his fears and doubts when facing death. Wilfred strengthens each of these victims in their quests as well, loving them and offering them hope and solace during their times of despair. Like Conrad and Hardy, the irony and fatalism of life contributes to Wilfred's death, as he attempts to apologize to Max fro striking him over a religious conversation. The ironic bullet that takes his life robs him of the answers to the profound questions that Wilfred seeks. Though Wilfred, as well as several of the characters, professes a strong faith in God, his inability to follow Him is overshadowed by his quest for the desires of the flesh. Like Donne, the duality and its associated tension never leave him; like Lawrence, that duality takes several forms; and like the hero in Green's The Dark Journey (1929), the unexpected bullet assumes a critical role in the character's fate. Torn in love, the females in both novels suffer as star-crossed victims. Max demands that Wilfred "forgive" the fatal shot, while tragically yet heroically, Wilfred concedes. Like Shakespeare's Othello, he loved not too little but too much; this is the paradox of man's existential dilemma, that love not only sustains, but sadly destroys, lives and relationships. As Wilfred suggests, desire destroys faith, especially in lives so young that wisdom is beyond reach. As Max said, there are "no principles" for a man in love (183).In both novels , darkness serves as a tragic symbol for man's quest for love. looking back on his life, Wilfred sadly, yet symbolically finds his only solace  "Where pleasure attempts to live again in the shape of memories" (100). As Angele, the heroine of The Dark Journey, realizes after her  lover's  emotional attack which left her face deformed forever, "You never know when life is about to betray you; it is useless to count on the morrow, or even the next hour; nothing is certain but death" (285).  An older woman, Madame Grosgeorge persuades a repentant Paul, Angele's lover, that she will arrange a meeting between the young man and Angele because he is wanted for his abuse of the young lady. Madame Grosgeorge, however, falls in love with Paul,  unknowingly betrays him to the authorities, shoots herself as punishment and in so doing, divulges his whereabouts, which ensures Paul's capture; and Angele  tragically dies of fever from overexposure in the cold after waiting so long for an planned rendezvous that never occurs.  In essence, Green ultimately expresses his  existential perspective on life and fate, much like Conrad's, "It was too much like life for Angele to be astonished by it. There is nothing hazardous or mischievous about fate; its treachery, prepared long in advance, only bears the appearance of chance because we cannot see its interior workings" (287).

                                                                             Works Cited

Green, Julien. Each Man in His Darkness. Introduction by Giovanni Lucera. Great Britain: Quartet               Encounters, 1990.

Green, Julien. The Dark Journey. Translated by Vyvyan Holland. New York: Harper & Brothers                       Publishers, 1929.