Mystical character arcs in fiction, part 3
Negative character arcs—meeting failure 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. Part 2 explored the positive arc in which characters overcome their internal obstacles and flawed beliefs to realize the story point. To conclude now, let’s look at the negative or tragic character arc in which characters do not overcome those obstacles and thus fail to learn the necessary lesson.
Mysticism and negative character arcs
Stories built around a negative character arc, otherwise known as a tragedy, are those in which the protagonist struggles with but does not overcome their internal obstacles or simply makes a series of choices that lead to a tragic end. Such characters have the potential to change for the better but fail to do so and suffer certain consequences as a result. Their abject failure thus communicates a cautionary message to readers, namely, “Here’s where these kinds of choices ultimately lead.”
As with positive character arcs, the nature of negative arc stories can focus on behavioral, psychological, moral, and/or spiritual aspects, depending on the obstacles and consequences involved. Physical suffering, for example, is a different experience from emotional suffering, which is distinct from spiritual suffering, namely, a loss of connection to one’s object of devotion (the “dark night of the soul”). In stories focused primarily on the mystical, the suffering that results from a negative arc would be more spiritual in nature, which is to say, denying God, pushing away God’s love, or denying one’s soul-nature.
Judas Iscariot is probably the most well-known negative arc character in Western civilization. His message: those who betray God and/or the teacher/guru will suffer deeply, perhaps losing all faith to the point of self-destruction. Plenty of stories can be written on that theme. But let me offer a more subtle example.
Sister Marie Thérèse Vauzous (The Song of Bernadette — book version)
In the movie version, as discussed in part 2 of this article, Vauzous follows a redemption arc: for most of the story she clings to the flawed belief that self-inflicted suffering, and not pure love, will bring sanctity. Once she realizes that mistake, she repents and finally accepts Bernadette’s truth.
In the book, however, she almost gets there: although she finally believes in Bernadette, she yet clings to duty instead of surrendering to love and she yet clings to a sense of superiority over Bernadette. As such, hers is a negative arc—it’s not outwardly tragic in the sense of a character that commits suicide, but it is spiritually tragic because she still keeps God at a distance.
Her conflict with Bernadette comes to a head in Chapter 43 of the novel, “The Sign.” The nuns of the convent of the Sisters of Nevers, which at this point includes Bernadette, are serving in military hospitals during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. Werfel takes the opportunity to show the difference between Vauzous’s commitment to self-sacrificing duty and Bernadette’s commitment to love.
First, Werfel writes of Bernadette:
No one knew in the halls of the hospital that Soeur Marie Bernarde [Bernadette’s monastic name] was the girl of Lourdes. She seemed a nursing-sister like any other, distinguished by her unusually large eyes and pleasant features. Yet it came to pass that ever more of the wounded and the sick asked for Soeur Marie Bernarde, even in the rooms where she had never been on duty. Day and night there was a crying for Soeur Marie Bernarde. Alleviation seemed to flow from her touch; her glance brought refreshment … wherever her occupation took her she left behind a trail of laugher and of ease.
And then of Vauzous, who we learn earlier is a high-born daughter of a general who yet chose the path of renunciation, he writes:
Marie Thérèse Vauzous … did her utmost and beyond, and exceeded the limits of her strength. She sacrificed her nights and refused her hours of recuperation. She kept strictest watch to see that the directions of the physicians were exactly carried out and that the patients were punctually given generous portions of well-prepared food. For hours she would stand in the kitchen and in the linen-rooms counting and reckoning and recounting with her own insatiable scrupulousness. Then again she moved slowly from room to room and from bed to bed, her deep-set clear eyes alert to observe whether all was as it should be.
And then the clincher:
Yet no voice asked for the nun Vauzous, although she was a hundred times more practically useful than Bernadette. She, too, said the kindest things to the sick and wounded, wrote letters for them, and to the poorest she promised help for the future. And yet at her appearance a slight sensation of fright passed from bed to bed, as though a high officer had arrived to inspect men subject to punishment.
Jealousy thus tears at Sister Vauzous, bringing her to confront Bernadette in private:
“It is an unpardonable failing in me to continue in a state of doubt in the teeth of the decision of a theological commission of inquiry, against the judgment of a bishop, yes, against the opinion of the Holy Father himself. But God sees the great depravity of my heart and that I cannot help myself. Therefore I have come to you, ma soeur, beseeching your help.”
…
“Oh, you would set me free from the horrible suffering if you could convince me. This way I am, except for the atheists themselves, that single unworthy one who still doubts. It is inexpressibly dreadful that I must speak in this way to you. But give me some sign that could help me.”
Vauzous goes on to give the example of a Sister in the convent whom Vauzous knew many years earlier. This Sister Raymonde had worked very hard at even the most repulsive tasks and was granted the grace of the stigmata (the wounds of Christ), demonstrating, in Vauzous’s mind, her great suffering. That’s when Bernadette finally reveals her own affliction:
“It may be that there is a sign for you too, ma mère,” [Bernadette] whispered and slowly raised her habit until her left leg was exposed. The knee was frightfully deformed by a tumor almost the size of a child’s head. The older nun tottered at the sight. She walked to the door, then returned and opened her mouth to speak. No word would come. She broke down at Bernadette’s feet, felled to earth by a cognition of mystical coherences.
These “mystical coherences” are spelled out in Chapter 44, among them the core of Vauzous’s egoic pride:
No matter what the proof might be, her inner most soul refused to accept the fact that this common, superficial, and stealthily rebellious creature should have been chosen from among all the living as the object of divine grace. In the obscurest corner of her being bled, as it were, the frightful question: Why she and why not I? And yet another question even more terrifying: Is my way of a lasting convulsive tension of the will the right way, seeing that one may unconsciously dance one’s path through all difficulties to heaven itself?
(Notice the egoic pronouns “I” and “my,” which I’ve bolded in the passage above.)
Even with such a cognition, it’s still not enough to overcome her flawed beliefs: that she is yet more worthy than Bernadette because of her attachment to duty and suffering over love and her clinging to pride of pedigree:
Even this change of hers, however, was a matter of self-discipline. After she had been vanquished by Bernadette and had condemned her stark voluntaristic way of attaining salvation, she strove after a simple humility which was foreign to her nature. Above all she, the general’s daughter, took it upon herself to minister to the eternally superior child of the common people by day and by night. With iron will she insisted on that entire service. … And it was bitterly ironical that when her former mistress and monitor performed certain services for Bernadette with all her old stringency, the girl was far from happy but rather much dismayed over the unseemly reversal of roles and circumstances. Thus it came to pass that, despite conversion and sacrifice, her old scourge became, under another aspect, a scourge once more.
Later, in Bernadette’s last moments, Vauzous is given one more chance:
Only Marie Thérèse Vauzous, her arms stretched out and crossed, slid toward the bed to be nearer the blessed one. Her face was riven by grief. Few had ever seen her weep. But she believed now that the lady was in the room. The most blessed, the ever lovely had come in her own person to receive her child and take her with her. Alone with her in the ineffable solitude of death the needy child had cried to her returning lady: “I love…I love you….” And now she, too, the nun Vauzous, sceptic so long against her will, was granted, she thought, the grace of presence at a vision. Look down upon the outcast, the hard of heart, who was full of envy in her gracelessness! Sobs wrung themselves from Marie Thérèse. In a broken voice she began to pray her Ave.
She is oh, so close! And we as readers hope that she will finally reach her point of redemption.
But Bernadette regarded her old teacher with a look whose attentiveness strove after obedience. She knew that they desired her to repeat the prayer after them.
This is Vauzous’s tragedy: even at this moment, when she knows The Lady is in the room to usher Bernadette into heaven, she still cannot relinquish her pride. She still wants the blessed one, Bernadette, to follow her lead, rather than surrendering herself to Bernadette’s devotion, to one whose last breath “she had used for the mighty cry of love.”
Of course, by worldly measures, Vauzous’s fate here is hardly tragic. Though her story in the book ends here, we can infer that she remains steadfast in the monastery to the end of her life rather than abandoning her vows or going the route of Judas. Even by religious standards her fate is not tragic and may be considered heroic: after all, she’s able to witness the final moments of a saint-to-be and, as we infer, remains true to her vocation.
Spiritually and mystically speaking, however, it’s a tragedy because Vauzous, by clinging to ego, squanders the priceless opportunity of being in the presence of a saint achieving blessed liberation. Furthermore, because Vauzous had also witnessed Sister Raymonde’s special grace of the stigmata (as she’d told Bernadette earlier), she should have been more open and prepared for similar possibilities in the future. Yet she strengthened her pride by refusing to yield, meaning that Vauzous will eventually have to undergo even more intense and painful experiences to overcome that spiritual fault.
We, as readers, can only hope that she will someday reach the same point as Hyacinthe de Lafite, discussed in Part 2, whereupon she falls to her knees and murmurs, “Pray for me, Bernadette.”
Two additional examples
Beyond the character of Marie Thérèse Vauzous, I don’t have another clear example from modern-ish fiction, so let me offer one hypothetical and one from a work-in-progress of my own.
First, what would happen if Marcellus Gallio in The Robe refuses to confess his role in the crucifixion when Peter gives him the opportunity?
By refusing that first opportunity, again presented by the one character who could truly understand, and by thus suppressing his shame, Marcellus would make that burden even more powerful while also starting a pattern of future suppression. On the tragic arc he’d then suppress his guilt further with a series of increasingly elaborate lies that would tear down everything he’d built up to that point. Not only would he destroy faith in Jesus, but faith in himself, ultimately meeting his end not through victorious martyrdom but through one of the greatest spiritual crimes, suicide.
The work-in-progress example comes from a story of mine that’s provisionally entitled The Resurrection of Father Walter. The protagonist, Ian, is grieving after his beloved teacher and mentor passes away. Ian decides, out of devotion, to preserve Father Walter’s legacy by collecting all his books and transcribed lectures into a searchable database. So far so good. To improve the usability of that database, he then decides to add AI technology, not simply as a better method of search but as a way to enable “conversations” with Father Walter. This is the first point at which Ian mistakes the database of text and the technology for Father Walter himself, thinking (wrongly) that Father Walter could ever be embodied by his words alone.
Ian then makes further decisions that reinforce this misperception. He trains AI with Father Walter’s voice so conversations can happen audibly. He trains AI with video of Father Walter so that he, and others who are now enamored with Ian’s creation, can see and hear their teacher again. He also makes the mistake of modifying the database with seemingly minor corrections and updates to keep those conversations “relevant” to present times, even though Father Walter himself knew nothing of those subjects. Thus, not only has Ian mistaken Father Walter’s words for Father Walter but is now corrupting those very words in such a way as to deviate even farther from whatever part of Father Walter they originally expressed.
It keeps snowballing from there as Ian embraces robotics to build up a facsimile of Father Walter, ultimately reaching the point of wholly “resurrecting” the teacher in the form of a full-body android who looks, sounds, and apparently seems to think like the original. But, of course, it’s not Father Walter at all. In fact, with all the corruptions introduced into the underlying database, the facsimile’s “teachings” gradually deviate from the original’s until they’re diametrically opposed. And Ian, and many others, don’t even realize the change, hence the tragedy.
Again, such stories can effectively communicate a caution against the kinds of choices that the tragic protagonist makes, thereby illustrating the need to make different choices. In this case, though, I won’t leave poor Ian in the lurch: there is a redemption twist. But I’m not going to give spoilers for a story I haven’t yet completed!
Closing note
Because achieving final mystical union or God-/Self-realization (“Self” with a capital-S standing in for the Absolute) essentially fulfills the whole purpose of a soul’s existence in the first place, a single story—even a full-length novel—probably can’t do justice to the entirety of such a journey. It’s enough, I would think, to deal with one significant step on the path, which is typically what a soul can achieve in any given lifetime anyway.
Such stories are likely more relatable and more useful to potential readers. Stories of saints are beautiful and inspiring, but many people, even though they’re inspired, yet react with the thought, “But, oh, I could never do that!” or “But, oh, that would never happen to me.” My goal with mystical realism in fiction is to provide meaningful examples that instead encourage readers to think, “Maybe I could do that myself.” The characters I’ve chosen for this series on character arcs are ones that I hope serve this purpose, as are the characters I aspire to write about myself.
Again, I’d love to hear in the comments about any stories you’ve found that contain characters with static, positive, or negative arcs. And, as always, any other thoughts about this post are welcome!
Thanks for sharing. I've learned a lot from these three posts on character arcs. I thought of perhaps one example of a negative character arc which has a moral theme and maybe a mystical theme. It also happens to be a non-fiction. The book is title "The Great Imposter" by Robert Crichton, who interviews Fred Demara and tells his story.
Fred grew up in a wealthy family in the early 19th century. His family lived in an upper-class neighborhood in Lawrence, Massachusetts, which had a large population of poor, immigrant workers. Though his family was wealthy, Fred was enrolled in a nearby public school that served the children of these poor workers. He felt lonely and out of place. One day, one of the children thought Fred "ratted" on him and got him in trouble. He threatened to beat him up and so, Fred, during the lunch hour, went home and brought back two of his parent's guns which he used to intimidate the children that advanced upon him to beat him up. In fact, he shouted, "I'm going to shoot your guts out." This brave gesture (in the eyes of the other school children) earned him respect. He learned that the way to "belong" was to be "bad." Eventually, his behavior deteriorated to the point where his parents decided that moving him to the more upper-class, Catholic school would be better for him.
The author writes, "For the first time in his life he had a serious dispute with his family. He made up his mind that he wasn't going to speak either at school or at home until he was returned to his old school. For weeks he held out against all pressures that were exerted on him until one afternoon, sitting sullenly in study hall he heard the soft sound of shoe leather come up behind him and felt the presence of someone hovering over him. It was the mother superior of the school and she simply sat down beside him and draped her black knit cloak around him as if he were being enveloped by the wing of some warm, kindly bird.
“At first he resisted her but there was something far more powerful than this stubborn boy’s will. In the secrecy of his cloak he began sobbing and crying helplessly about some sorrow he couldn’t name. He can still recapture the feeling of being reborn into the world again as he cried.
“Sitting beside her, he became gradually terribly conscious of the crucifix she wore until, he feels, that he was perhaps hypnotized by it.
“I don’t know, but I decided then and there that I had some special, sacred mission and I made up my mind to become a very devout boy.”
Fred’s life was inspired by a new meaning, which brought to him a calmness and happiness he had never before known. When the Great Depression hit, Fred’s family became poor. Fred found himself cast into a world that lacked the wealth and respect from others that it brought. He ran away from home and joined a trappist monastery. It turned out that Fred, perhaps unfortunately, wasn’t able to follow the rigid guidelines around food and conduct and eventually had to leave. He joined a religious lay order where he served as a teacher for some time. After a confrontation with the administration, his behavior took a sharp turn for the worse: he quit and stole the school's car. After joining the army, he decided it was too much discipline for him. He had a friend in the army who brought him over to his mother’s house one night. Fred discovered a box with much of this friend’s personal identification documents: all the things he needed to steal this friend’s identity. This began a life-long journey of imposing as other people.
I suppose one of Fred’s lessons was to find fulfillment, not in the opinions of others and the pleasures that wealth can bring, but in contentment and the happiness of a clear conscience. Instead, he abandoned his hope of inner happiness from a spiritual life and became increasingly immersed in false identities, gradually losing who he really was.