Gilead

John compares himself to Moriturus, a character from a poem of the same name by Edna St. Vincent Millay. In the poem, the speaker fights against death: “Withstanding Death / Till Life be gone, / I shall treasure my breath, / I shall linger on” (Stanza 34). Like Moriturus, John does not want to die. He deeply treasures his life, which has grown even more precious over the years with the blessing of his young wife and son. John praises the Lord every time he awakens to another morning. Faced with his health scare, like Moriturus, John continues to cherish each breath, striving to “enjoy myself as I can” (117) while he lives.

Yet John spends a lot of time in this section considering his physical death and the afterlife. He imagines himself dying while waltzing with a treasured book in hand or being burned in a Viking funeral on the church communion table (though he hopes they save the table). While playfully dramatic, these notions reflect John’s desire to make an impact, a memory, even after death, much as he hopes to leave an image of himself for his son with his posthumous letter.

John and Boughton ponder what heaven might be like. John knows Calvin’s writings “discourage curious speculations” (166), but John approves of Boughton’s hopes that heaven will be the splendors of the world multiplied by two (147). Because John loves life and the physical world so much, he hopes that heaven will not be very different, that he will reunite with his wife and son.

John’s reflection on the Fifth Commandment emerges from his thoughts about fathers and sons, returning us to the theme of the sacredness of existence and the bond between parents and children. John explains to his son how he and Lila love him as deeply as God, saying it is “godlike to love the being of someone. Your existence is a delight to us” (136). The root of honoring someone is appreciating the “sense of sacredness of the person” (138). John sees the presence of God in the individual. Loving someone as God loves them teaches about God; it “is an instruction in the nature of God and humankind and of Being itself” (139).

The sermon John preaches about Hagar and Ishmael centers around a father forced to give up his children. Abraham fathers Ishmael at the age of 86, drawing a comparison to John and how miraculous the birth of a son is to men in their old age. Abraham casts both Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness. Later, Abraham takes his other son, Isaac, to be sacrificed. The elderly father must trust in the Lord to care for his children. We see John’s anger and jealousy emerge as he departs from his written sermon text to preach about fathers who mistreat or abandon their children. John’s love of his own son, and his disgust at Jack’s transgression—as well as the fact that Jack and Lila and his son are sitting together like a young family—underlie his emotional response. Jack “clearly” (131) takes John’s words as directed at him, which they are, though John denies the fact. John’s personal prejudice is evident: He cannot forgive Jack.

We also see John wrestling with his emotions. Jack’s presence offends him. John admits to having been covetous of other’s families over the years, and feels that, based on his past, Jack is a threat to his own long-deferred family. Jack makes him touchy and self-conscious about his age, and jealous at how his son looks so admiringly at Jack “as if he were Charles Lindbergh” (122). He prays for guidance but feels that Jack intentionally makes him uncomfortable. John claims it is not for him to judge, but he does judge that Jack “doesn’t have the look of a man who has made good use of himself” (160). John takes Jack’s past actions as an offense against himself.