Fire in TVBIA, So Far

Tarwater sees fire as a sign of divine election, anticipating his becoming the next Moses. "Often when he walked in the woods and came upon some bush a little removed from the rest, his breath would catch in his throat and he would stop and wait for the bush to burst into flame. It had not done it yet." (355) In conjunction with this, fire is a cleansing force.

The old man "had schooled [Tarwater] in the evils that befall prophets . . . those that come from the Lord and burn the prophet clean; for he himself had been burned clean and burned clean again. He had learned by fire." (332) But the fire does not simply cleanse for the sake of preparing a prophet - it has a more ominous bent, and can act in cleansing as an instrument of punishment. The old man warns the school teacher that "THE PROPHET I RAISE UP OUT OF THIS BOY WILL BURN YOUR EYES CLEAN" (379), in reference to Tarwater.

The old man is constantly associated with fire, through his own devices. In reliving his front yard rants, the great-uncle shouts, "'The Lord is preparing a prophet with fire in his hand and eye and the prophet is moving toward the city with his warning.'" (368) The cleansing fire is posed opposite the city, associated with sin. Tarwater reinforces this idea during his visit to the city. "[H]e had realized, almost without warning, that this place was evil - the ducked heads, the muttered words, the hastening away. He saw in a burst of light that these people were hastening away from the Lord God Almighty." (346) So far the fire is vengeful and cleansing, set opposite the sinful city, which is in turn opposed by God and light. And light is shed by fire!

But O'Connor's fire grows complicated, as O'Connor's things are wont to do. The old man, who thinks himself of the fire, is afraid of its agency. His first name is Mason, a layer of bricks, a crafter from clay - the name gives him a deep association with the earth, and the idea of being cremated instead of buried terrifies him. He thinks that the schoolteacher would have him "cremated in an oven and scatter [his] ashes" - twin horrors for his separation from the ground and lying at the mercy of his own nephew. And fire can be an agent of the devil, for when Tarwater drinks from the still it was "A burning arm [that] slid down Tarwater's throat as if the devil were already reaching inside him to finger his soul." (358) Tarwater's opposition fire - or is it his great uncle? - attains a greater profile when he is escaping his own arson and "forced on through the woods by two bulging silver eyes that grew in immense astonishment in the center of the fire behind him" (361), those eyes so like the eyes of the great uncle, the prophet with fire in his eye, his eyes, in death, "dead silver" (336). Tarwater runs from this cleansing agent, the devil's arm - to the city, towards sin. Picked up by the salesman, Tarwater panics. "'That's the same fire we came from!'" Meeks contradicts him, saying, "'That's the city we're coming to. That's the glow from the city lights.'" (362)

So a demarcation is made, perhaps, between natural and artificial light. The stranger goads Tarwater that if he stays in Powderhead, he will be "[f]orever by [him]self in this empty place with just as much light as that dwarf sun wants to let in." (353) The natural limits of the sun are no match for the city lights, limited only by the ingenuity of man. Their artificiality represents to Tarwater something completely unfamiliar. He tells Meeks, "'I know everything but the machines'" (380). (This emphasizes the strangeness of Tarwater's uncle the schoolteacher, who is described as machine like. "For an instant the boy had the thought that his [the schoolteacher's] head ran by electricity." "The boy found himself scrutinized by two small drill-like eyes set in the depths of twin glass caverns." (386) Even the schoolteacher's doorknocker makes Tarwater recoil - "He touched it and jerked his hand away, burnt by a metallic coldness." (385) The combination of the foul metal, brass, thus alloyed, thus forged in fire, and its burning coldness greater confuses the role that fire plays in the story.)

As conflicted as the relationship is between Tarwater and fire is, it cannot be ignored that he acts as an agent of fire himself. He sets Powderhead aflame, fulfilling the way its name hearkens to a sitting bomb (361). He is prophesied as the purger of the schoolteacher, the boy the old man would "raise into a prophet to burn [the schoolteacher's] eyes clean" (351). (The role of Meeks in Tarwater as an agent of fire is an interesting one. He is a copper flue salesman (361), and so trafficks in chimneys, the guide to fire's smoke. I wonder what role he will play as the novel progresses?)

And yet, Tarwater "knew that we was called to be a prophet and that the ways of his prophecy would not be remarkable . . . . [God] set him in a world of loss and fire to baptize on idiot child" (389). Tarwater is to be a baptist, a waterbearer, someone to put out fires. Tarwater is a character in conflict with himself - his name speaks to his conflict. He is associated with water, but it is murky, dark - one can't be sure what one sees in it. The conflict is clear from his relationship with the stranger, too. The stranger's very presence speaks of an internal struggle, and he elaborates on it when he says, "[T]he way I see it . . . you can do one of two things. One of them, not both. Nobody can do both of two things without straining themselves. You can do one thing or you can do the opposite." (354) Only time, and finishing the novel, will tell where Tarwater makes his allegiance: water, fire? the natural, the man-made (and in those, the urban, the rural)?

These questions plague the reader as much as they plague Tarwater. The stranger asks, "what's God going to do with sailors drowned at sea . . . And what about people that get burned up naturally in house fires? Burnt up one way or another or lost in machines until they're pulp?" (352)

Fire acts as the will of God and a device of the devil; something embraced and shied from; both a powerful tool and a powerful enemy. The story seems to be leaning towards a coming of age for Tarwater - though having read some O'Connor by now, where the story seems to be going and where it ends up are often divergent ideas, to say the least; are these the conflicts of growing up? Do they represent a deeper struggle? Is there a deeper struggle than coming to terms with maturity?

And maybe someone has additional evidence - contradictory evidence? A different reading of these examples?