A Silvery Night (Week 3)

The protagonist of A Silvery Night is taught by his religious family and their traditional heritage to fear the Devil, but instead of developing a fear as they intended, he develops a fascination with the Devil. I might just be reading into this way too much, but the concept of him being tempted to do what he has been prohibited from brings to mind the Book of Genesis, in which Adam and Eve are tempted by the snake to disobey God’s orders and eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Like Adam and Eve, the protagonist of A Silvery Night faces temptation and gives into it, and is forever changed by the experience. “He got to the center of the knoll and summoned him. At first no words came out, from pure fright, but then his name slipped out in a loud voice and nothing happened. He kept calling him by different names. And nothing. No one came out.” (98) While Adam and Eve became aware of what was good and evil, the protagonist realizes that he cannot summon the Devil as he had been warned against. “Now he understood everything. Those who summoned the devil went crazy, not because the devil appeared, but just the opposite, because he didn’t appear.” (99) Coming to the conclusion that the Devil doesn’t exist, the seeds are planted for a crisis of faith as he starts to question a strong, defining facet of his heritage. While I could keep talking (or more likely, grasping for straws) about the literary parallels between the Book of Genesis and A Silvery Night, I would rather bring up what Raoul said in class about how he takes relief in the idea that the Devil doesn’t exist and therefore neither does suffering and punishment after death. Yes, the protagonist might find relief in this, but he may also find distress, since it is heavily implied that he begins to doubt the existence of God as a result and may be confused and lost when presented with this idea, given how prominent religion is in family heritage. We may never know how these thoughts ultimately affect him in the long run, but we can speculate on the possibilities.