Mystical character arcs in fiction, part 2
Positive character arcs in the search for the Absolute
Part 1 of this article provides an overview of character arcs and explored the static arc in relation to mystical realism. Here in Part 2 we look at the positive character arcs, with the negative arcs coming in Part 3.
Mysticism and positive character arcs
Marcellus Gallio in The Robe, whom we saw in Part 1, is an example of characters with a positive, transformational, or growth arc who strive to overcome whatever flawed beliefs/internal obstacles prevent them from reaching the goal or at least taking a step on that path. Those obstacles run the full gamut from the behavioral and the psychological to the moral and spiritual or mystical. I’ll explore this spectrum in later posts; the short of it is that the bulk of fictional works deal with behavioral and psychological levels because “moral” fiction runs the risk of didacticism and “spiritual” fiction is hardly understood.
Even so, what I think makes a story relevant to mystical realism is not so much where it falls along this spectrum but rather the intention behind the arc, which is to say, the underlying devotion of the character. This inner intention or direction, in fact, is what distinguishes a spiritual or mystical story from others even if the outer aspects aren’t obviously so.
That is, if the character is seeking to overcome their internal obstacles simply to get rich, get the relationship, get more power, or fulfill some heroic mission (even a socially noble one), then the story is essentially materialistic or humanistic and falls on the behavioral, psychological, and/or moral levels. If, on the other hand, the character seeks to overcome their obstacles to grow closer to the Absolute/God that they love, or even to discover that love for the first time, then the story takes on a devotional or spiritual flavor.
Let’s look at three such characters, two from Franz Werfel’s The Song of Bernadette and one from the modern novel, Buffalo Flats, by Martine Leavitt. All of these characters are, I think, good examples of mystical realism because they are more or less ordinary, flawed human beings to which many of us can relate.
Sister Marie Thérèse Vauzous (The Song of Bernadette—movie version)
The first example of a positive arc is Sister Marie Thérèse Vauzous as portrayed in the movie version of The Song of Bernadette. (The book version is a little different and demonstrates more of a negative arc, as we’ll see in Part 3.)
This particular Sister Vauzous is Bernadette’s self-styled nemesis who is among the last to believe in her visions. Her resistance stems from the flawed belief that suffering alone is the key to sanctity. She therefore inflicts every suffering she can upon herself in an attempt to “storm the gates of heaven,” and secretly believes she is more worthy of that grace than Bernadette, who to her eyes has not suffered at all.
The story point that Sister Vauzous needs to learn is that which Bernadette already embodies, namely Jesus’ statement, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Sister Vauzous, poisoned by jealousy and envy, is anything but pure.
At the same time, the extremes of her self-abnegation demonstrate that her devotion to God is already very strong: it’s just that she’s chosen a negative mode of expression—ego-centered suffering—rather than the much higher expression of complete self-offering in love. But she is wholly sincere. Thus, when she finally realizes her mistake, she makes an immediate shift and vows to lovingly serve Bernadette for the rest of her days.
You can watch this version of the character in the following segment of the movie (starting at 2:15:50). Watch until 2:22:00, and especially notice how poignantly actress Galdys Cooper portrays Vauzous’s moment of realization at 2:21:07.
Hyacinthe de Lafite (The Song of Bernadette)
The character of the poet Hyacinthe de Lafite (who appears only in the book as his character is merged in with that of Imperial Prosecutor Vital Dutour in the movie), is an example of a character who follows a negative arc until the very end of his part of the story. That is, he resists the story point of faith but ultimately caves, making for a redemption that’s all the more poignant for the intensity of his resistance.
Lafite specifically maintains that he’s the perfect freethinking neutral where Bernadette’s visions are concerned. He’s neither a believer (like most of the populace and eventually the Church), nor does he fight the visions as fraudulent or as a threat to the social order (like the government officials). Instead, he clings to the flawed belief that he, as a “pure” artist, can stand above even the transcendent. Indeed, although he fancies himself a poet, he even resists putting words on paper for fear of tainting the purity of his abstract ideals.
Lafite is present during the first days of Bernadette’s visions in the first parts of the book, but then leaves Lourdes. He returns to Lourdes in Chapter 46, twenty-one years later, long after the Church has validated Bernadette’s visions and the miracle of the spring in the Grotto at Massabielle. The city has grown tremendously to accommodate the steady stream of pilgrims, including the construction of a basilica over the Grotto itself.
Meeting up with old friends, the tax-collector Estrade, who is on holiday in Lourdes, and Doctor Douzous, who has remained the whole time, Lafite clings to the idea that everything that happened two decades early was but a “lovely legend.” But Douzous takes them into the huge hospital to show them “the hell of the flesh” (the title of the chapter), giving Lafite time to reflect on his own terminal cancer. And then in Chapter 47, “The Lightning Strikes,” they go to the Grotto and witness an apparent healing, though Lafite still doubts.
His climax occurs in Chapter 48, “I Never Loved,” where Lafite, still trying to hold himself apart, returns to Massabielle in the evening and ponderously approaches the Grotto:
Many decades had passed since he had entered a sanctuary for any purpose but the appraisal of artistic values. I am not as these people are, he reflected, I haven’t their uncomplicated faith. All the corrosive thoughts that have ever been thought have penetrated my brain. My reason stumbles at the head of the human caravan over a darkling land.
As he continues to move forward, cracks begin to appear in his aloofness:
I know that all gods are but the mirrored images of our own corporeal nature and that if the pelicans were to believe in a god, it would have to be a pelican. Yet is that no disproof of the being of divinity, but only a proof of the narrowness of the mortal mind limited to its own words and imaginings. Never could I have endured the thought of being eternally excluded from the cognition of God, to whom I feel myself akin in spite of all. I do not belong to you yonder who believe in a Heaven in the heavens. But neither am I to be reckoned among those dullards who believe in a heaven on earth to be provided by better laws and machines. To them I would prefer you yonder who believe in a Heaven in the heavens.
Against the background of prayers to the Holy Mother, Lafite then admits to the harsh reality of the cancer that’s killing him, leading to a further confession:
I’ve come to realize a more ghastly thing…the cognition that I’m the greatest sinner in the whole world, I, Hyacinthe de Lafite, the nameless scribbler, the zero who means nothing to anyone. … I’m not talking about the thousand sins of slackness and weakness with which my soul is stained day by day. I’m talking about the crucial sin according to Genesis with which I’m rotten, that of insane, laughable, and most absurd pride which stood at the very cradle of my mind. … I swore to be the only human being who belonged to no community. … If I did not acknowledge the being of God, it was because I could not endure not being He. … It is evident that my pride has destroyed me.
More and more, as he steps toward the Grotto with the congregation still engaged in prayers, he comes to realize the enormity of his mistake, and that he’ll die utterly alone:
For I have loved no one. No one and nothing and not even myself….
This moment is where Lafite realizes that love is what matters and is why I point to his arc as mystical and devotional in nature. For although he has pushed love away throughout the story, his very devotion to artistic purity enables him to pivot, to allow him to finally open himself to grace.
Lafite is, by this time, face-to-face with the Grotto, and, given the small door he’s opened in his heart through his sincere confession, grace begins to enter:
His empty eyes stared into the disappearing hollow. Yet the longer and emptier his gazing, the more evidently did the bodily discomfort that had tortured him for hours disappear, the desolate sensation of his entrails being loosened for having sunk down. He breathed calmly and yielded to a weariness which made his self seem less important.
…
The rhythmic murmur [of the congregation’s prayer] became a beneficent rustling. It was like a soft support against which one could lean one’s back. And with it came the feeling as though one were surrounded by a helpfulness, encircled, taken into its core. The prayers of men took Hyacinthe de Lafite into their midst.
With that support he opens himself to the Divine Mother:
Did I sink so low merely because I did not believe that there were arms which could lift me up? O maternal power of the universe, O Morning Star!
And then he finally surrenders:
The support came nearer him. The prayer behind him seemed to lay many gentle hands upon him. He who had always despised numbers as a conglomerate of low instincts and low interests now felt the devout behind him become a single loving incorporeate body that helped him more and more. Without any other sensation than that of the fading of his shame, the writer Lafite now also sank upon his knees and murmured into the grotto of the lady the familiar words of the angel’s greeting and of his mother’s lips and his own childhood.
…
In peace unknown to him Lafite remained thus until night had fallen and most of the worshippers had risen and gone and only the flames of the candles were left alive. But ere he arose there came to his lips, he knew not how, the invocation: “Bernadette Soubirous, pray for me!”
As I mentioned earlier, Lafite’s character doesn’t appear in the 1943 movie but is merged into the character of Vital Dutour, played by Vincent Price. Price delivers a fine performance of a very abbreviated approach to and surrender at the Grotto, which you can see in the following clip (watch until 2:31:25):
I’ll close this section on Lafite by saying that this mere 30 seconds in the movie is a condensation of an entire chapter of the book. As I’ll discuss in upcoming posts, the real gift of writing and reading is the privilege of sharing in a character’s inner experience, like that in the excerpts above. Where mystical realism is concerned, writing can achieve a depth that a visual medium cannot.
Rebecca Leavitt (Buffalo Flats)
The third example of a positive arc, and one from more recent (though historical) fiction, is the protagonist Rebecca in Martine Leavitt’s 2023 Young Adult novel, Buffalo Flats. On the opening page of the book, Rebecca meets God on a hill—a little mysticism right out of the gate! The rest of the story is then about her seeking to acquire and dwell permanently on that now-sacred site, a plot arc that easily has a metaphorical meaning.
With the story set in a 19th century Mormon community in Canada,1 Rebecca has to overcome both external obstacles—like earning the money and the fact that women are not allowed to purchase land—and internal obstacles—namely her unorthodox behavior and resistance to her duties and to the idea of marriage. These obstacles are not uncommon within both historical and modern fiction; what differentiates Buffalo Flats is Rebecca’s fundamentally mystical motivation to overcome them: she wants to be closer to God.2
As Leavitt writes:
Rebecca knew it was more than just wanting to visit the tor. It was a yearning in her to hold on to something that had happened to her, to put her hands on those rocks and say, I own this rock, and I own that thing that happened to me. It is mine.
She could doubt her own eyes, but she had taken something away with her when she'd had her Sit. She had felt in that moment that living was just a thin floating thing like a cloud, a skim of dust on the river, the call of a wolf filling the air, striking the sky as if it were a glass bowl and ringing away forgotten. She could still feel it, if she tried. If that wasn't proof, she didn't know what was.
She couldn't give up. There had to be a way to have her land. God might have all manner of tricks up his omnipotent sleeves. (102)
In the course of the story, she first overcomes her internal obstacle regarding duty by sacrificing her safety in the act of taking care of dying people during an epidemic. She becomes sick herself in the process, and hovers close to death. Leavitt gives Rebecca a nice mystical touch at that moment:
She knew how easy it would be to simply roll out of her body and get up and walk away. Her body could barely hold her in—it had always been that way, she knew now—just a wet, fleshy coat that could be shrugged off in a moment, so easily discarded. She hadn't known before, but now she knew. (219)
And how does she succeed in achieving her external goal of acquiring the land?
SPOILER ALERT!
She acquires the land by overcoming her resistance to courtship and marriage. She is sitting with Coby, the man she’s in love with, who also honors her search for God:
He [Coby] reached into his pocket, pulled out a piece of paper, and handed it to her. She took it in her hands.
It was a land deed, for this quarter section of land.
On it was Coby’s full name, Jacob Jeremiah Webster, and also the name of…Rebecca Eliza Leavitt.
…
“But what will your future wife have to say about finding the name of Rebecca Leavitt on your deed?”
“Well, I hoped someday the two might be one and the same.” (224-225)
Coby demonstrates his respect for her search because he offers her the land outright, irrespective of whether she accepts his proposal. She warns him that she won’t be a traditional sort of wife, but he already knows that, for he, too, is a bit unorthodox. And with the proposal accepted, Leavitt closes the story with, “They sat a long time…she, and Coby, and God.”
Coming next
Part 3 concludes this series by looking at examples of negative arc characters. In the meantime, do you know of other stories with mystical positive arc characters? Let us all know in the comments, along with any other thoughts on the subject.
The story is also based on Leavitt’s own family history, thus Rebecca’s surname is also Leavitt.
The book also contains a few other instances of Rebecca’s spiritual awareness, which Leavitt presents without ever promoting Mormonism or trying to explain anything about the faith. In fact, those experiences are rather universal and thus Leavitt makes them relatable to many readers. Rebecca’s faith community is simply the backdrop of the story.