A Nightmare of Creation

A close sunset that covers the heavens with a vivid and palpable plumage. A girl with glorious red hair. A confrontation at night between a lamp­post and a tree. A fancy­dress ball at which all creation is found dancing. If nothing else, G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday is a beautiful book. But it is more than that. It is an allegory, with symbolism at every turn and an ultimate lesson on the nature of things. It is a nightmare, in which men take off their faces and a dark, frightening riddle prevails. And it is a tale of redemption, which reinforces the truth of Genesis: that God created the world very good.

In The Man Who Was Thursday Gabriel Syme's madcap adventure truly begins when he descends into the cave of the anarchists. His descent into an underground cavern brings immediately to mind the idea of a descent into Hell, and considering that his guide's first name is Lucian (c.f. Lucifer) the metaphor is an apt one. But Gabriel is not kept underground. Rather he proceeds from it, is sent forth, as it were, ostensibly to wreak havoc but in actuality to fight for order. Lucian Gregory, in a desperate bid to try and disarm Gabriel Syme, likens the dynamiter's cave to the catacombs of the Christians: I would argue that the cave most similar to that of the anarchists comes somewhat earlier ­­­ Plato's cave. A disguised policeman surrounded by anarchists, Syme is very much a prisoner. It is in the cave that he first hears of the terrible Sunday and the dreaded Council of the Week. Like the prisoner in Plato's cave, Syme sees only the silhouette of the reality of Sunday, obscured and confused, a faceless menace. And then, like the prisoner, Syme emerges. He is led out of the mouth of the cave and boards a ferry on the river. With the ancient Greeks still in mind, Styx is the immediate symbol: Gabriel is leaving Hades­­or entering into it. But water is also for baptism, rebirth, and when Gabriel leaves the cave it is as though he is leaving the womb to begin life in the insane riot we call creation.

Gabriel Syme is given five items as part of his rank as the anarchist Thursday: a flask of brandy, a sandwich­case, a sword­stick, a revolver and a cloak. Interestingly enough, five is the symbolic number for mankind, the symbolic number for man (3) and woman (2) combined. G. K. Chesterton once wrote an essay that mentioned the number 555 as being “The Mark of the Man” (Alarms and Discursions, Five Hundred and Fifty­five), and so this symbolism can be understood as intentional. Chesterton is using the number five to indicate that Gabriel Syme is the everyman character, the Christian mind in a whirlwind of paganism.

The paraphernalia of Syme’s disguise supports this: the brandy symbolizes drink, which Chesterton frequently defended as being part and parcel of a healthy, Christian relationship to the world, going so fa r as to dedicate a whole novel on the theme in The Flying Inn; the sandwich­case stands for food, simple and wholesome, that which nourishes and strengthens; the sword­stick represents a hidden chivalry, the knighthood of all Christian men; the revolver represented to Chesterton a sense of adventure; this cloak is also proper to an adventurer, but it also conceals, reminding us that Syme is a hidden knight, a secret force. All this quixotic regalia cannot go to Lucian Gregory, the satanic archetype, nor can it go to any of the anarchists, who are not men. It must belong to Gabriel Syme, the Christian man, as he sets out to face the dark nightmare of Creation.

As the story progresses the theme becomes more apparent. One by one the masks fall away and the insanity falls into order. The paganism reveals itself to be Christian, to be on the side of the good and rational. The formlessness is given form, the void is filled, the chaos is replaced with order, the insanity is subsumed by reason. At the end Syme finally understands that all of creation has been made very good and, more importantly, he understands that all of his sufferings have been within the plan of God, that all suffering has a purpose. The aspects of creation, in all their seeming arbitrariness, are indicated by the dresses at the ball, dancing with each other in a revelry of order.

In the book of Exodus, Moses begs to see the face of God. God refuses, for the sight of God’s face would kill Moses on the spot, but He allows Moses to see his back. Gabriel Syme recognizes that what he is seeing of Creation is only the back, and he muses about the possibility of getting around to the front. When he finally confronts Sunday he “gets round to the front,” as it were, and loses consciousness ­­­ for the front of Creation is the back of God. It is only after this witnessing of Sunday, of Creation in its perfection and completion, that Syme can come to himself, as it were, and find that he is walking in a garden, speaking with an image of God­­­Gregory, who, after all, is a man­­­and see Rosamund Gregory again, the Eve to his Adam. Gabriel Syme has gone around the world and returned home. He has awoken from the nightmare, and can begin life anew.