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Chapter 15, Part One

PostPosted: February 9th, 2007, 7:57 pm
by The Bigsleep J

Sunday Symbolism

PostPosted: February 11th, 2007, 12:17 am
by Kanakaberaka
This final chapter appears to be even more jam-packed with Christian symbolism than all the previous chapters. That quote where Sunday says. "I seem to remember only centuries of heroic war, in which you
were always heroes--epic on epic, iliad on iliad, and you always
brothers in arms..." ends with the mysterious phrase, "And when I met you in the daylight I denied it myself". Could this possibly be a reference to the Incarnation of Christ? Remember that "Sunday" claimed that he "...sat in the darkness, where there is not any created thing" untill meeting the "detectives" in the daylight. Jesus avoided calling attention to his divine origin in public.
The other Christian reference is the hornbill bird which Syme takes note of in this chaper as well as during the chase through the zoo. I remember hearing a radio sermon about the nesting habits of the hornbill. Apparently the female bird must pluck off much of her plumage and seal herself off in a hole in a tree trunk to incubate her eggs. The male of the species feeds the female through a small opening in the tree. The sacrifice of the female for her chicks is seen as an allegory of Christ's entombment, his descent into hell. When the mother hornbill and her chicks emerge months later it is seen as a reference to Christ's reserrection. So the hornbill was regarded as a Christian symbol.

Here's what one such hornbill looks like :


Re: Sunday Symbolism

PostPosted: February 12th, 2007, 5:35 am
by The Bigsleep J

Shades of Narnia

PostPosted: February 12th, 2007, 6:15 am
by Kanakaberaka