Tragedy and the Cross: The Role of Suffering in Michael D. O’Brien’s Novels
Personal suffering is pervasive in O’Brien’s novels, and it is mostly portrayed as an emptying out of the individual. The protagonist has to set out on a journey alone, separating himself from his social context, material possessions, and self-esteem—as, for example, in the novel, Strangers and Sojourners, in which, after his departure from home, the hero suffers a series of misfortunes which gradually remove the little he has gained on the journey.
It is as if, in peeling away layer after layer from the individual, O’Brien is testing whether he can reach an essence, the nucleus of real personality. In modern, secular terms, this would correspond to the search for the true self, the center of personal autonomy, behind the surface of social roles and masks. In O’Brien, however, the process is more akin to a Christian kenosis: an act of self-emptying, in order to be filled with the Divine will.
For O’Brien the gradual deprivation of the sojourner is also connected to the Franciscan ideal of poverty; in his diary he often writes that material possessions are hindrances to achieving a state of spiritual purity and dedication. Suffering purifies a person and turns him toward the supernatural, ideal pole of life. But, at the same time, it can invite discouragement, a sense of individual failure, of having misunderstood one’s mission: the “why have you forsaken me?” on the cross.
It is as if, in peeling away layer after layer from the individual, O’Brien is testing whether he can reach an essence, the nucleus of real personality. In modern, secular terms, this would correspond to the search for the true self, the center of personal autonomy, behind the surface of social roles and masks. In O’Brien, however, the process is more akin to a Christian kenosis: an act of self-emptying, in order to be filled with the Divine will.
For O’Brien the gradual deprivation of the sojourner is also connected to the Franciscan ideal of poverty; in his diary he often writes that material possessions are hindrances to achieving a state of spiritual purity and dedication. Suffering purifies a person and turns him toward the supernatural, ideal pole of life. But, at the same time, it can invite discouragement, a sense of individual failure, of having misunderstood one’s mission: the “why have you forsaken me?” on the cross.
Publisert i European Conservative , 2022
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