I Heard the Owl Call My Name – The Church Belongs in the Gutter Essay Example
Humans are granted the freedom to make choices by higher authorities, and these choices ultimately determine whether they are viewed as mistakes or blessings. When faced with life's challenges, we seek guidance from a higher authority to minimize our errors. Throughout history, worship systems have been established to inspire individuals to learn from virtuous teachings and gain wisdom from past mistakes.
The church in the gutter serves as a metaphor for humanity's power to choose and God's power to deliver consequences. In the novel, I Heard the Owl Call my Name, the narrative unfolds around the construction of a new vicarage by the villagers. When the Bishop arrives to bless the vicarage, the indigenous people organize a communal feast as a tribute. Following the feast, the villagers continue to revel in merriment through da
...ncing and social interactions.
After the celebration, the Bishop and Mark got into the speedboat and headed downriver to reach the seaplane that would take the Bishop back home. While boarding the plane, Mark expressed his worry about some of his top parishioners potentially being in a bad situation once the tribe can afford to purchase alcohol.
The Bishop's response was that the church does its best work in the gutter (98). By saying this, he means that the church chooses to help those in need and empathize with the less fortunate. This quote is significant in the novel because it foreshadows misfortune when the villagers of August are legally allowed to buy alcohol. The natives of Kingcome were against forming connections with white people because they believed their traditions and heritage had already been negatively impacte
by their influence.
The significance of the tribes' culture had become limited to the younger generations. Allowing alcohol again posed a danger to the village as it had proved to make the Kingcome tribe susceptible to addiction and intolerance. Once the white man realized he could exploit the villagers, he seized the opportunity. A demonstration of this manipulation occurred when a white man deliberately got an Indian intoxicated and, as a result, the Indian wrote a bill of sale on a sacred mask that belonged to the tribe.
To reconcile with the villagers and obtain the mask, he forms a fondness for a native and pledges to marry her. Once he acquires the mask, he abandons the woman. In summary, my understanding of the quote is that it relates to our capacity to choose and the consequences, whether positive or negative. As humans, we are prone to failure. Without experiencing failures, we cannot develop. Thus, we must acknowledge a superior authority when we err; this is how we discern between right and wrong.
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