the devils walk : themes
The period in European history known as the Enlightenment raised a massive question that remains hitherto unresolved; how do we lead our lives in the absence of god? Of course it would be foolish to believe that, in pre-Enlightenment days, the world was somehow a simpler place. Although the primary source of morality and law eminated from a single, metaphysical source it did not preclude doubt. Laws handed down by the divine are just as open to question as laws created in the physical world, however the divine was at least a recognised authority; one to whom reference could be made, questions asked and to whom doubt could be presented. Furthermore the divine was, conveniently, omnipotent. As the gospel of St John begins: 'In the beginning was the Word'. God was Alpha and Omega - the beginning and the end and therefore not only the first word but also the last.
Sometime during the fifteenth century all this began to change as Galileo pointed his telescope towards the heavens and confirmed what Copernicus had hypothesised some years before, that the earth was not the centre of the universe. This startling revelation began a movement in thought that eventually formed the roots of the Enlightenment. Gradually philosophers began to move away from the Descartian Dualism – I have both a mind and a soul – to the monocultural concept – I just have a mind. The inevitable consequence of this was, first time, the great philosophical question became not 'Who is God?' but 'Who am I?'
The artist, finding themselves freed from the obligations placed on them by solely religious patrons, became able to place people rather than gods at their centre of their work. What began with the eternal smile of the Mona Lisa continued with the 300 or so self-portraits of Rembrandt and ultimately found expression in Hamlet, who anticipated Camus by some three hundred years, when he posed the ultimate question about the value of his own life and existence on earth – "To be or not to be."
By the eighteenth century these inward looking thoughts formed themselves into the humanist movement epitomised by the likes of Hume, Bentham and Hobbes and found expression in works such as The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine. But the one huge question still remained; who decides what's right and what's wrong if god is dead.
In the nineteenth century this problem was taken up by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and the German Friedrich Nietzsche. Beteween them they are credited with the birth of Existenialism but it is Nietzsche's Nihilism that is most relevant to The Devils Walk.
During his discussion with Fr. Ignace in Chapter 1, the question of nothingness arises. Dorrell refers to Socrates' observation that he knew 'nothing'. In Dorrell's interpretation, Socrates was not saying that he knew nothing in the sense that he had no answers, but that he was familiar with nothingness; thus anticipating Nietzsche by nearly two thousand years.
When he meets Fr. Ignace Dorrell is on the edge of the abyss. Fr. Ignace offers him an opportunity to draw back by referring him to first to Nietzsche and then Camus. He explains that as Nietzsche contemplated the death of god he saw the same 'nothingness' as Socrates, coining the term Nihilism from the Latin 'nihil' literarily meaning 'nothing'. Out the nothingness Nietzsche creates Zarathustra and the concept of übermensch. The german word über is, and often has been, easily misinterpreted. Although it is not entirely certain exactly what Nietzsche meant by it, it is clear that he didn't mean what the Nazis conveniently read in to it; that is 'über' as in superior. A closer translation would be simply 'above' expressing the idea that the übermensch is the meaning of life in the absence of god.
Carrying on from the the work of Nietzsche, it was Camus who answered the 500 year old question by articulating the simple idea that life has no inherent meaning. If this is true, then the search for it is equally meaningless; life is nothing more and nothing less than Absurd.
Having once embraced this idea, then what is left is not to seek meaning in life but to concentrate on giving your own life meaning. So Dorrell begins to tell his own tale in the hope that meaning will arise through the process of narration.
But of course one question still remains. In the absence of god who or what is magnetic north for our moral compass? Camus answered this by saying that for the absurdist (i.e. one who has accepted the idea that life is absurd), decisions over right and wrong are made not from morality but from the absurdists own integrity.
When he meets Fr. Ignace Dorrell has reached a point of existential stasis. He has relied on his own integrity and come up way short. He needs Fr. Ignace to move him from the stagnant to the kinetic by telling him that he does not need to be good to do good. It is this revalation that drives Dorrell on to the denouement of the book.
Is James Dorrell a paedophile?
The definition of the term paedophile varies depending whether your measure is psychiatric or psychological or whether you are concerned with the law; the vernacular definition is, naturally widest of all of them. What is broadly agreed however is that a paedophile has morbid sexual interest in pubescent and / or pre-pubescent children. By this matrix Dorrell is banged to rights. Although he is not interested in the very young, his sexual interest in young boys cannot be denied.
The questions raised in The Devils Walk are not concerned with the origins of paedophilia – or with homosexuality for that matter – these are best left to the psychiatrists and psychologists. What I have sought to examine is how a human being copes with sexual deviance and to what extent they are ever in control.
First and foremost it is important to understand that paedophilia is not a lifestyle choice. No one wakes up one morning and decides that, from now on, they will be getting their sexual kicks from children. Put this way the whole idea seems absurd, nevertheless, if one is to believe the popular press, you would be forgiven for thinking that this was somehow the case. What we have to accept is that, whilst it is perhaps broadly fair to describe paedophilia as a behavioural disorder, the paedophile did not choose it. What then should be the proper response to discovering that your sexual preference is for the pre-sexual?
When faced with any urge human beings have three choices; they either suppress them, consign them to private fantasy or act upon them. Stoic philosophers built a an entire discipline around the first believing, not unreasonably, that to become slave to our emotions would impair our judgement. It wasn't until the eighteenth century that the idea was suggested that our emotions might actually have a vital role in our decision making capacity; as Edmund Burke said "Action is prompted by emotion.", and so arose the concept of the eternal dance of reason and emotion.
For the most part they dance in harmony and we able to harness our emotions to prompt our reason into making the right decision. However, which of us can honestly say that we have not allowed our heart to rule our head from time to time? Since the death of God in the mid to late nineteenth century there has been a continual impulse not only to obey, but to indulge the self. It is, after all the basis of industrial capitalism and consumerism. We still may have a small obligation to render unto Caesar but we have no obligation to render unto god. Dorrell observes in Chapter 9:
"Those standing before god were doing no more than standing before themselves, once removed, staring at a mirror of their own creation"
If Dorrell is right, then what was previously 'rendered until god' must now, logically, be rendered unto ourselves. The only drag anchor on this level of indulgence is, as was pointed out in the article above, our own integrity and, as Dorrell discovers, this is only good up to the point wher we are confronted by an overwhelming, primal urge.
Those possessed by the demon of sexual deviance confront it daily, even hourly. For most of us, whose sexual preferences fall within the accepted norm, there are countless opportunities for them to be expressed, whether through a relationship either casual or long-term, or self-indulgence or mainstream pornography or by hiring it.
There may be, within these choices, some variance in what is socially acceptable but, providing it is consenting and no one gets hurt, it's not illegal in most countries in the world. Those who live with an urge to have sex with a child, naturally, have no such opportunity to express it. It is permitted only to suppress it or to allow it to go no further than a private fantasy. However, at the moment that thought becomes deed, as surely during a lifetime of living with the tyrant it must, then they have crossed the line in the sand.
What is important in Dorrell's story is not that he does succumb but that he has to. He has no choice, the tyrant robs him of his free will. He is fully aware of the consequences, his mind reminds him of them daily, but he cannot resist. Although, eventually he emasculates himself, he cannot cast out the demon. Only death can do this.