As Sean Fitzpatrick points out in his insightful article in Crisis Magazine, GK Chesterton pulls a reversal on one of the detective genre’s most common tropes. Whereas most mysteries in the end unveil the seemingly good person to be the evil murderer, The Man Who Was Thursday instead “tore away the mask of hell only to reveal the face of heaven.”
Without giving away the plot, there are a number of dark fears that Gabriel Syme must face in this nightmare, the fear of miracles, the fear of science, the fear of nature, the fear of the masses, the fear of death. What he discovers is that much of that which we feared was out of ignorance, and once its true nature is revealed it, it is not our enemy, but an ally.
Read the full article at the link below:
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/chestertons-the-man-who-was-thursday-nightmare-or-dream-come-true
12 Responses to Tearing Away the Mask of Hell