A Canticle for Leibowitz

Day 1: Chapter 1

• I. About the author: Walter M. Miller, Jr.
  • A. American
  • B. World War II bomber pilot; bombed Monte Cassino, the abbey St. Benedict founded around 529 and the mother house of the Benedictine order
  • C. Numerous short stories, one of which served as the basis of this novel
• II. Setting
  • A. Time: noon on a day six centuries after the Flame Deluge (World War III)
  • B. Place: southwestern American desert
    • 1. References to the Great Salt Lake and El Paso
    • 2. Vivid descriptions of heat, dryness, and desert conditions/life
  • C. Atmosphere/Milieu
    • 1. A monastery built at an oasis near the intersection of two now vanished highways, built from the ruins of twentieth-century buildings
    • 2. A small population of mutants (sports) exists
      • a. “St. Raul the Cyclopean”
      • b. Direct references to monsters
  • D. Mood
    • 1. Suspicion of strangers
    • 2. Medieval isolation of communities
    • 3. Fear of the unknown and of the invisible (demons)
      • a. Haunted feel of shelter area
      • b. The skull with the gold tooth
      • c. Fear of the “Fallout”
    • 4. Suggestion of the existence of cannibalism among the mutants: “If it’s meat you want, I’m nothing but gristle.” (4)
    • 5. Peril of investigating the past: the Venerable Boedullus
• III. About the characters
  • A. Brother Francis
    • 1. Novice on a Lenten vigil, seeking his vocation as a monk
    • 2. Preoccupied with the shrine he imagines for the Blessed Leibowitz
    • 3. Parched, hungry, and dazed
    • 4. Fearful of the supernatural
    • 5. Prefers death to losing the chance of his vocation; nervous about breaking rules
    • 6. Curious – willing to defy the rule against tampering with the ancient ruins
    • 7. Only his curiosity seems to outweigh his spirit of obedience.
    • 8. Still, dedicated to the rules of the order
    • 9. Uncertain of his own feelings; consequently, uncertain about his memories of the encounter with the pilgrim
  • B. The old pilgrim
    • 1. Girds his loins with a burlap cloth and wears a straw basket hat
    • 2. Jewish
      • a. Prays to Adonoi Elohim, Hebrew for “Lord God”
      • b. Refers to Francis’s writing as “backward”
      • c. Marks Hebrew letters on rock
    • 3. Cantankerous
    • 4. An experienced traveler
    • 5. Kind
    • 6. Mysterious
    • 7. Smiles wryly
• IV. About technique
  • A. Miller uses ambiguity, allowing his reader to reach his own conclusions about symbolism and the fictional past of the story
  • B. Miller uses religious imagery and ideas to develop his themes.
  • C. Miller uses beast imagery to underscore his themes
• V. About imagery
  • A. Animal imagery
    • 1. Serpent: The old pilgrim is described in such terms. (1)
      • a. “[W]iggling iota of black”
      • b. Spine-chilling effect of first appearance
      • c. “Legless”
      • d. “[W]earing a tiny head”
      • e. “[S]eemed more to writhe than to walk”
      • f. “[R]hythmic gait”
      • g. Demonic
        • 1) “[S]pawned by heat demons”
        • 2) “[A] thing monstrous”
        • 3) “[A] thing preternatural”
      • h. Offers help
      • i. Francis believes he offered insight
      • j. The serpent is a dual symbol: temptation and deception on the one hand (Garden of Eden, Genesis 3:1–7), wisdom and healing on the other (the bronze serpent, Numbers 21:6–9). This suggests an ambiguous nature to the old pilgrim.
    • 2. Goat: The old pilgrim is associated with a goat
      • a. Miller describes his voice as a “bleat.” (3)
      • b. The goat is another dual symbol: diabolic on the one hand, a sacrifice for the atonement of a community’s sins on the other. This also suggests an ambiguous nature to the old pilgrim.
    • 3. Wolves:
      • a. Because Br. Francis fears the attack of wolves, he builds a dome-like barrier of stones to protect him.
      • b. The wolf is a symbol of ravenous appetite and overwhelming threat.
      • c. The she-wolf is the only symbolic beast (representative of incontinence or lack of self-control) that Dante cannot overcome when he wakes in the Dark Wood, another wilderness that recalls the one in which we meet Br. Francis.
    • 4. Buzzards/Vultures
      • a. They are carrion birds that feed on dead animals. Consequently, they are associated with death.
      • b. Because it gains life from death, it is associated with eternal life.
      • c. Since – according to ancient natural science – the eggs of the female vulture are fertilized by the east wind, it is a Christian symbol of the virginity of Mary.
    • 5. Dove
      • a. It appears in the reference to the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit in its role as Comforter.
      • b. It stands in contrast to the buzzards Br. Francis sees when he comes to.
      • c. It is a Christian symbol with a complex of symbolic meanings: reconciliation with God, peace, simplicity, purity, the Holy Spirit, the soul in the condition of heavenly peace, the cardinal virtue of moderation.
  • B. Other
    • 1. Desert/Oasis: The desert is perilous and destructive to human life.
      • a. The oasis offers survival. The desert threatens human life.
      • b. While the desert symbolizes the sterility of human ignorance, the oasis represents the hope of knowledge.
    • 2. The dome: The dome is the distinctive architectural feature of a Renaissance church. Consequently, the basilica becomes a symbol of the Church as a concept. Since Br. Francis builds a dome of rocks to protect himself from the wolves, we can easily make a connection to his joining the monastery to protect himself from the reign of ignorance.
• VI. About the themes
  • A. Life is sacred: “That which was born alive was by the law of the Church and the law of Nature, suffered to live, and helped to maturity, if possible, by those who had begotten it.” (1–2)
  • B. History is cyclical: In the six centuries after a nuclear war (the Flame Deluge), civilization parallels the dark age of the medieval period.
• VII. About the plot
  • A. During his Lenten vigil Brother Francis encounters a wandering pilgrim whom Francis regards as a potential demon because the old man’s lunch tempts the starving young man.
  • B. The pilgrim with girded loins identifies a stone that will just fit the odd-shaped hole left in the domed covering Francis is building as a shelter from the wolves.
  • C. In removing the stone, Francis discovers an ancient fallout shelter which he mistakes for the den of a demon.
• VIII. About vocabulary
  • A. Religious
    • crucifix: an image of Christ nailed to the Cross
    • pilgrim: one on a journey for a religious purpose
    • abbey: a monastery or a convent
    • shrine: a site held in veneration because of its association with a saint or some holy event
    • saint: a person officially recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as being entitled to public veneration and as being capable of interceding for men on earth; one who has been canonized
    • Lent: the forty week days before Easter, observed as a time of penitence and fasting
    • hermitage: a place where one lives in seclusion
    • novice: a person who has entered a religious order, but who is on probation before taking final vows
    • rosary: a string of beads upon which a special series of prayers are counted
    • fast: voluntary abstinence from much food
    • abstinence: voluntary refusal to eat certain foods on days of penitential observance
    • vocation: a religious career taken up because the person believes God has called him/her to that work
    • vigil: a devotional “watch” kept in anticipation of a vocation
    • abbot: the ruler of a monastery
    • martyr: one who dies for his religious values
    • exorcism: the ritual performed to cast out a demon
    • Paraclete: the Holy Spirit when depicted in the form of a dove
    • beatus: a deceased male declared by the Church to have attained the blessedness of Heaven
    • holy water: blessed water used in certain rituals of the Catholic Church
    • incubus: a male evil spirit (believed to rape sleeping women)
    • versicle: a short verse or sentence said or sung as part of a religious service
    • litany: a series of responsive prayers (recited alternately by pastor and congregation)
    • Holy Saturday: the day after Good Friday and before Easter Sunday
    • Providence: divine direction; guidance from God
    • canonization: the official process of declaring a person to be an official saint of the Roman Catholic Church
    • charismata: divinely inspired gifts or powers
    • catacombs: a network of underground tombs
    • Mass: the celebration of Holy Communion in the Roman Catholic Church
    • Holy Sacrament: the bread (body) and wine (blood) of Holy Communion
    • penitent: feeling or expressing deep regret for one’s sins; one who expresses such feelings
    • Hosts: individual Communion wafers
    • succubus: a female evil spirit
    • postulant: a candidate for admission into a religious order
    • Eucharist: another name for Holy Communion in the Roman Catholic Church
    • contrition: sincere regret for wrong-doing, especially as expressed in prayer
    • penance: a devotional act that demonstrates contrition, such as prayer
    • genuflect: to bend the knee in worship
  • B. Coined
    • misborn: a human born with mutant genes
    • simpleton: the name adopted by those survivors of the great nuclear holocaust who sought to punish those whom they regarded as responsible for it by at first burning books and destroying other instruments of civilization and eventually killing the learned
    • Flame Deluge: the almost mythic name assigned to the nuclear holocaust that all but destroyed the world six centuries before the book opens
    • Children of the Fallout: a collective designation for the misborn indicating a mythicized understanding of catastrophe that led to the mutations
    • Simplification: the period of time during which the simpletons carried out their program of wiping out the traditional vestiges of civilization and learning
    • Memorabilia: the collective name for any written or printed document that survived the Flame Deluge and the Simplification
    • sport: a genetic anomaly; a mutant

Day 2: Chapters 2–3

• I. Setting
  • A. Time: afternoon of the same day; the next Sunday
  • B. Place: among the ruins of a military installation of the twentieth century
    • 1. References to stone containing refined metal
    • 2. Vivid descriptions of hastily laid foundations and the background information in the note in the box
  • C. Atmosphere/Milieu
    • 1. A certain spookiness
    • 2. The skull with the gold tooth
    • 3. Peril of investigating the past: the Venerable Boedullus
    • 4. Pagans regard transistors as charms.
• II. About the characters
  • A. Brother Francis
    • 1. Torn between desire to find vocation and need to know about his find – both linked to the purpose of the abbey and to the theme of responsibility.
    • 2. Prefers death to losing the chance of his vocation; nervous about breaking rules
    • 3. Curious – willing to defy the rule against tampering with the ancient ruins
    • 4. Only his curiosity seems to outweigh his spirit of obedience.
    • 5. Still, dedicated to the rules of the order: he fights back tears at the thought of returning to the abbey before completing his vigil, but returns obediently, nonetheless.
    • 6. He is motivated by a desire to diminish ignorance.
    • 7. His descent recalls Dante’s.
    • 8. He has linguistic talents.
    • 9. He sees the blueprint as a divine sign of his vocation.
    • 10. Uncertain of his own feelings; consequently, uncertain about his memories of the encounter with the pilgrim: self-conscious
  • B. Father Cheroki
    • 1. Arthritic (suggesting he may be old)
    • 2. Does not see Br. Francis as particularly bright
    • 3. A by-the-book priest
    • 4. Somewhat impatient with Francis’ lengthy and rambling confessions
      • a. “Either-you-did-it-or-you-didn’t”
      • b. Desires directness, certainty, organization, and brevity in confession
    • 5. Regrets his impatience after his contact with Br. Fingo
  • C. Brother Fingo
    • 1. A bald mutant with spotted albino skin, hunched shoulders, long, hairy shins, and teeth of assorted colors; he rides a donkey.
    • 2. Nicknamed Br. Spots
    • 3. From the region of Minnesota
    • 4. Has a good sense of humor
    • 5. A woodcarver by vocation
      • a. Has made a wooden statue of the Blessed Leibowitz
      • b. Currently on kitchen duty because the abbot feels the statue lacks the proper reverence
  • D. Isaac Edward Leibowitz
    • 1. A twentieth-century engineer
    • 2. Founder of Francis’ monastic order
    • 3. A martyr
    • 4. A once married man
• III. Beast imagery: the wolf standing over Br. Francis’s shelter
  • A. The wolf symbolizes the wild and diabolical, as well as positive, spiritual aspects.
  • B. In Christian tradition, it is the symbol of powers threatening the faithful.
  • C. It also symbolizes gluttony (a sin about which Br. Francis often thinks).
  • D. In the Middle Ages, it symbolized demonic forces (another of Br. Francis’ principal concerns).
  • E. Because it has excellent night vision, it is also associated with light (a symbol of the knowledge that Br. Francis seeks).
• IV. About the plot
  • A. Francis’ curiosity outweighs both his superstition and his sense of obedience. He descends into the pit to investigate.
  • B. Francis discovers what appear to be artifacts from the founder of his monastic order: of special interest, a blueprint initialed by the man.
  • C. When Francis relates his tale of the pilgrim and his discoveries during confession, Fr. Cheroki disbelieves him and sends Francis back to the monastery to recover from his hallucinations.
  • D. After encountering Br. Fingo, whom he begs to verify the existence of the crypt, Francis faints along the way.
• V. About the themes
  • A. Man’s desire to know is in conflict with his need to act responsibly: Francis investigates the crypt-like ruins of the fallout shelter despite the fact that such investigations have frequently resulted in death.
  • B. Theme of cycles: The opening litany follows the responsive style of the Mass, a style that is itself cyclical, moving back and forth between the priest and the congregation.
  • C. Theme of responsibility: The same prayer links natural disasters to man-made disasters and acknowledges that suffering is the consequence of irresponsibility and disobedience to a higher authority than individual or corporate human desire.

Day 3: Chapters 4–6

• I. Setting
  • A. Time: The week following Francis’ discovery; then a year later
  • B. Place: The abbot’s office primarily
  • C. Atmosphere/Milieu
    • 1. A pervasive and historic bias in favor of ignorance and illiteracy
    • 2. An air of mystery concerning the destiny of Francis’ discoveries
    • 3. Thin population of North America; little civil order; illiteracy prevails.
    • 4. Witchcraft offers the most lucrative employment potential.
    • 5. The Church serves in the role of communications network.
• II. About the characters
  • A. Brother Francis
    • 1. Seventeen years old
    • 2. Terrified by Dom Arkos
    • 3. “I cannot deny what I saw with my own eyes.”
    • 4. Takes the corporal discipline with humility and spiritual gratitude.
    • 5. Sees no sharp division between the realm of the Natural and that of the Supernatural.
    • 6. Hungry for knowledge
    • 7. A former slave of a tribal shaman
    • 8. Skillful with blade and bow
    • 9. Rather short
    • 10. Not very heavy
    • 11. Certain of his vocation to the Order
  • B. Father Cheroki
    • 1. “Of baronial stock from Denver”
    • 2. Respects the abbot’s office more than the man himself.
    • 3. Closely observes the confidentiality of the confessional.
    • 4. Made his decision to send Francis back to the abbey because he felt the young novice was delirious.
  • C. Dom Arkos
    • 1. “Wide peasant face”
    • 2. “Thick-furrowed muscular glower”
    • 3. Approves of Fr. Cheroki’s decision
    • 4. Wears a coyote skin robe
    • 5. Wears a pectoral cross as his badge of office
    • 6. Hairy chest
    • 7. Reminds Cheroki of a were-bear not completely metamorphosed
    • 8. Reminds Cheroki of a military chieftain
    • 9. Impatient
    • 10. Convinced of Francis’s veracity by his endurance of corporal discipline
    • 11. Wants Francis to know for sure that the pilgrim was just an old man
    • 12. Respects reason
  • D. Isaac Edward Leibowitz
    • 1. Martyred by hanging
    • 2. Had burlap sack over his head
    • 3. Fruitlessly searched for wife twice
    • 4. Fled to Cistercians for sanctuary, joined the order, and later became a priest
    • 5. Founded Albertian Order “to preserve human history for the great-great-great grandchildren of the children of the simpletons who wanted it destroyed.”
    • 6. A weapons specialist
    • 7. Leibowitz is a Christ figure
      • a. He is betrayed by a technician (Judas)
      • b. Forgives his betrayer
      • c. Martyred (by simultaneous hanging and roasting)
• III. Beast imagery
  • A. Arkos means “bear”
  • B. Arkos is called a lion in contrast to the hermits as sheep
    • 1. The lion as “king of the beasts” marks the abbot as leader.
    • 2. The lion is also associated with light. Medieval men thought it never closed its eyes.
    • 3. It is also associated with courage (the abbot’s decisiveness), wildness (the abbot’s appearance), and wisdom (the abbot’s role as leader and as preserver of knowledge).
• IV. About style
  • A. Miller uses a biblical tone and construction of sentences in his account of the Flame Deluge and the Simplification to develop his parallel to the Middle Ages.
  • B. The beast imagery underscores the theme that man has two natures: the humane and the bestial.
• V. About the plot
  • A. Dom Arkos congratulates Fr. Cheroki on his handling of Br. Francis but feels frustrated by the damage done to the abbey’s hope for the canonization of Leibowitz by the fact that a novice of the order has discovered vital evidence.
  • B. Dom Arkos administers corporal discipline to test Br. Francis’s veracity and shares with him the fanciful tales already spreading among the novices.
  • C. Francis returns to the desert and broods on the old pilgrim. Cheroki’s words reveal that almost all the monks wish that the old pilgrim were Leibowitz.
  • D. Francis raves about the pilgrim and is denied his vows.
  • E. The abbot orders the shelter closed and all discussion suspended.
  • F. Francis endures another Lenten vigil but is denied his vows.
• VI. About the themes
  • A. Responsibility: Br. Francis’s discovery is suspect because he has a motive for wanting Leibowitz canonized. Consequently, Dom Arkos has a responsibility to protect the evidence against those who would too eagerly interpret it as miraculous.
  • B. Responsibility: Dom Arkos expects Br. Francis to take responsibility for putting to rest the rumors surrounding the pilgrim.
  • C. Respect for reason: “Insofar as thought could be governed at all, it could only be commanded to follow what reason affirmed anyhow; command it otherwise, and it would not obey.”
  • D. Natural law: “[It binds all] to Christ in spirit, though they be ignorant of His name.” It serves as the secular analog to the Christian values of the monks.
  • E. Duty to preserve humanity: Leibowitz’s own and his followers’ determination to preserve the history of humanity and its culture even in the face of death proclaims this theme.
  • F. The fragility of knowledge: “…through a Moses or a Hitler or an ignorant but tyrannical grandfather, a cultural inheritance may be acquired between dusk and dawn . . .” (54)
  • G. The respect for knowledge: “It mattered not at all to them that the knowledge they saved was useless, that much of it was not really knowledge now, was as inscrutable to the monks in some instances as it would be to an illiterate wild-boy from the hills. . . . To observe the way a knowledge system is knit together is to learn at least a minimum edge-of-knowledge, until someday – someday, or some century – an Integrator would come, and things would be fitted together again. So time mattered not at all.”
• VII. Coined terms
  • A. The Flame Deluge
    • 1. It resulted from an international arms race.
    • 2. Leibowitz served as a weapons engineer employed by the military.
    • 3. The nuclear holocaust left cities in molten ruin, killed hundreds of millions, and spread rampant radiation sickness.
  • B. The Simplification
    • 1. The ravages of the Flame Deluge ignited mass migrations of refugees.
    • 2. The migrations led to a “confusion of tongues.” [Language is the trade route of knowledge. When communication breaks down, ignorance takes over.]
    • 3. The resultant ignorance, fueled by anger against the government and all who served it – including scientists – led to raging fear.
    • 4. The fear led to hatred and the will to take revenge on the government, the military, and the scientists whom the mob saw as responsible (while ignoring the fact that as members of a democracy they constituted the government).
    • 5. They sought to simplify the complex world that had destroyed itself.
    • 6. They eventually extended their killing to any leaders, technicians, and teachers, inevitably targeting anyone with learning, any literate person.
    • 7. The mob revels in its ignorance.
    • 8. The Church offered sanctuary to the learned because the mob dealt more leniently with the religious so long as they did not openly oppose the mob.
    • 9. The active violence lasted four generations.
  • C. The Memorabilia: the rescued, preserved, and copied books that constituted the sole link with the past.

Day 4: Chapters 7–9

• I. Setting
  • A. Time: Ch. 7, seven years later; Ch. 8, four years after Ch. 7; Ch. 9, seven years after Ch. 8
  • B. Place: The abbey, especially the scriptorium
  • C. Atmosphere/Milieu
    • 1. The timeless mood of men whose work knows no hurry
    • 2. Cheerful anticipation of canonization during Aguerra’s visit
    • 3. Austere caution during Flaught’s visit
    • 4. Patient endurance during Br. Jeris’s tenure as Librarian
• II. About the characters
  • A. Brother Francis
    • 1. Realizes that reading a blueprint requires special training
    • 2. Saddened by Br. Jeris’s teasing but suffers no loss of devotion
    • 3. Recognizes a vague familiarity in the wry smile on Br. Fingo’s carving of Leibowitz
    • 4. Patient with Jeris’s sarcasm and with his command to put away the blueprint
    • 5. Formally friendly with Dom Arkos
    • 6. Prone to fainting spells
    • 7. Probably in his forties by the time Leibowitz’s canonization is announced
  • B. Br. Fingo
    • 1. Not returned to the carpentry shop for 9 or 10 years
    • 2. Affable as compensation for ugliness
  • C. Dom Arkos
    • 1. “A very wise and prudent man,” according to the first messenger from Rome
    • 2. Warns Francis to be very careful of what he tells Aguerra, but says nothing to him regarding Flaught’s investigations
  • D. Br. Horner
    • 1. A “gentle old man”
    • 2. A wise manager who understands workers’ need for diversion
    • 3. Smiles wryly
    • 4. Dies early in Advent (late November or early December)
  • E. Br. Jeris
    • 1. Enjoys teasing Br. Francis about his illumination
    • 2. Sarcastic
    • 3. Spends his free time making oilskin lampshades (shows his practicality)
    • 4. His practicality leads to his promotion to manager of perennials.
    • 5. When Br. Horner dies, Jeris takes his place and orders Francis to put away his illumination.
    • 6. Frets, fumes, and drives himself
  • F. Monsignor Alfreddo Aguerra
    • 1. Prothonotary* apostolic, postulator (advocate) for Leibowitz
      • *A canon lawyer, probably one of the twelve chief ecclesiastics charged with the registry of important pontifical proceedings; in archaic usage, a chief scribe [Prothonotary is an established church title, the chief clerk or notary of a court.]
    • 2. A Dominican
    • 3. Treated like royalty by the monks during his stay
    • 4. Has simple and civilized tastes
    • 5. Suave, diplomatic, older
    • 6. Expresses a keen interest in those to whom he speaks
  • G. Monsignor Flaught
    • 1. Advocatus diaboli, chief canon lawyer handling the case against the canonization of Leibowitz
    • 2. Has metaphorical “small horns” and “pointy fangs”
    • 3. Treated no better than – if as well as – the other monks
    • 4. Sarcastic, demanding, ruthless
    • 5. Only one who sees Francis’s story the same way Francis has always seen it: trivial to the point of silliness
  • H. Isaac Edward Leibowitz
    • 1. Tall
    • 2. Somewhat stooped
  • I. The woodcarving of Leibowitz
    • 1. Has a wry smile
    • 2. Looks vaguely familiar to Francis
    • 3. Smile irritates Dom Arkos
    • 4. Image shocks a visitor from New Rome
• III. Beast imagery: When he speaks to Aguerra, Francis begins his account of his experience with the old pilgrim by mentioning wolves.
• IV. About style: Ambiguity
  • A. Arkos misreads Cheroki’s motive for sending Francis back to the abbey
  • B. The nuncio misreads Francis’s blushing at his reference to the writings
• V. About the plot
  • A. After seven years, Francis professes his vows and enters his vocation as a copyist. He chooses to work on an illumination of the blueprint he discovered.
  • B. Francis recognizes a vague familiarity in the features of Fingo’s carving.
  • C. Br. Horner dies and Br. Jeris succeeds him as Librarian. Jeris orders Francis to put away his illumination and work on lampshades instead.
  • D. The postulator for Leibowitz visits and speaks with Francis as does the advocatus diaboli.
  • E. Years after the visits of the two canon lawyers, the Vatican announces the canonization of Leibowitz and invites Br. Francis to attend as the representative of his Order.
• VI. About the themes
  • A. Cycles: “There was a tedium of repeated days and repeated seasons; then there were aches and pains, finally Extreme Unction, and a moment of blackness at the end – or at the beginning rather.” (68)
  • B. Cycles: The very act of copying; daily life in the abbey; repeated consideration of the limitation of the magisterium to matters of faith and morals.
  • C. Meaninglessness of Time: Br. Sarl’s project; Br. Francis’s project; Br. Fingo’s banishment; Br. Fingo’s carving. “[B]ut in the dark sea of centuries wherein nothing seemed to flow, a lifetime was only a brief eddy, even for the man who lived it.” (68)
• VII. Points of interest
  • A. We offer externals as evidence of the internal; hence Br. Francis’s desire to glorify Leibowitz’s saintliness by illuminating the manuscript.
  • B. The door to the fallout shelter was designed to swing outward in order to keep the unauthorized out.

Day 5: Chapters 10–11

• I. Setting
  • A. Time: during Francis’s journey to the canonization; midday on the last day of his return trip; 3174 at the end of Ch. 11 (That date marks a point 600 years after Francis’s death.)
  • B. Place: The road to New Rome; the Vatican in New Rome; since the trail back to the abbey leads southwest, New Rome must lie northeast; Br. Francis dies near the midwestern plains; a city-state arises in the vicinity of the Red River (Texarkana)
  • C. Atmosphere/Milieu
    • 1. Travel inevitably hindered by bandits
      • a. Some generous in spirit
      • b. Some monstrous
    • 2. The unhurried elegance and majesty of New Rome
• II. About the characters
  • A. Brother Francis
    • 1. Wears a black eye patch to suggest he possesses the “evil eye”
    • 2. Prays for the strength to fight the thief to prevent his taking the illumination
    • 3. Moved almost to tears when the thief smudges the illumination
    • 4. Worked on the illumination for fifteen years
    • 5. Troubled by the robber’s mockery of the time he put into the illumination
    • 6. Overwhelmed by the atmosphere of the Vatican and the occasion
    • 7. Gray and wrinkled about the eyes from the close work of copying
    • 8. Killed by an arrow squarely between the eyes
  • B. The robber
    • 1. Not in any obvious way malformed (implying that his deformity is one of heart or spirit)
    • 2. Short
    • 3. Heavy as a bull
    • 4. Bald
    • 5. Gray eyes
    • 6. Jaw like a block of granite
    • 7. Stands with legs spread wide and arms folded over chest
    • 8. Armed only with a knife he does not take out of its sheath
    • 9. Not superstitious of Francis’s “evil eye”
    • 10. Laughs as Satan might
    • 11. “Business is bad. Traffic’s light these days.” (82)
    • 12. Hates his ancestors for giving him birth
    • 13. Asks the same question Br. Jeris asks: What is it [the illumination] good for?
    • 14. Cannot tell the original from the copy
    • 15. Easily throws Br. Francis
    • 16. Accompanied by two hooded figures
      • a. One apparently has six fingers or an extra thumb
      • b. The other definitely has two hoods, probably bicephalous
  • C. Pope Leo XXI
    • 1. Frail old man wearing white
    • 2. Strides briskly
    • 3. Less ferocious than Dom Arkos
    • 4. Speaks many dialects
    • 5. Laughs when he transfers the falcon to an unsettled monsignor
    • 6. Possessed of a kindly meekness that Br. Francis sees as qualifying him for his office as “the servant of the servants of God”
    • 7. Speaks softly
    • 8. Deeply grieved by Francis’s misfortune
    • 9. Smiles gently
    • 10. Smiles wryly
    • 11. Wryly honest about his ignorance
  • D. The old pilgrim
    • 1. “Wiggling black iota”
    • 2. Searching for something
    • 3. Buries Br. Francis’s body
• III. Beast imagery:
  • A. The horsefly in the armor
  • B. The Pope’s name, Leo, means “lion.” Ironically, his physical description would more appropriately describe a lamb.
  • C. Clan chief of the hill people wearing a panther skin costume
  • D. The Pope wears the Fisherman’s ring.
  • E. The hooting of the owl in the forest and the circling buzzards (foreshadowing Francis’s death)
  • F. A dead hog beyond the Valley of the Misborn
• IV. About the plot
  • A. Br. Francis encounters a misborn robber and his two hungry companions on the way to New Rome. He loses the illumination to the leader, but by humility saves the original Leibowitz blueprint.
  • B. Br. Francis’s experience in New Rome makes him aware of the majesty of humility superior to the majesty of the material trappings of power. He also learns that his fifteen years of illuminating the blueprint saved it from the robber.
  • C. Just before the two mutants kill him, Br. Francis sees an all too familiar “wiggling black iota.”
• V. About the themes
  • A. Humility in the face of power
    • 1. Br. Francis licks the robber’s boot
    • 2. The Pope’s meekness despite his exalted titles and role
    • 3. The evident poverty of the Church
  • B. The Order’s role as mankind’s memory
  • C. Cycles: The life cycle of the buzzards that feed on death
• VI. Points of interest
  • A. The Valley of the Misborn
    • 1. Located two months’ journey by donkey from the abbey
    • 2. A colony secluded from the world
    • 3. Not supervised by the Church
    • 4. A centuries-old refuge from the violence and hatred directed at them by the forest tribes
    • 5. Population expanded by new misborn refugees and occasional live births to mutant unions
  • B. The Misborn
    • 1. Fertile sports sometimes pass on their mutation to their offspring
    • 2. Some offspring show no outward mutation but seem to possess no conscience: “blighted by some invisible deformity of heart or mind”
    • 3. Some ecclesiastics view them as non-human (bereft of the imago Dei, the image of God)
    • 4. “Even the idiot which seems less gifted than a dog, or a pig, or a goat, shall, if born of woman, be called an immortal soul, thundered the magisterium (the teaching organ of the Church), and thundered it again and again.” (80)
    • 5. Came to be called the “Pope’s nephews” or the “Pope’s children”
    • 6. “Let that which is born alive of human parents be suffered to live,” the previous Leo had said, “in accordance with both the Natural Law and the Divine Law of Love; let it be cherished as Child and nurtured, whatever its form and demeanor, for it is a fact available to natural reason alone, unaided by Divine Revelation, that among the Natural Rights of Man the right to parental assistance in an attempt to survive is precedent to all other rights, and may not be modified legitimately by Society or State except insofar as Princes are empowered to implement that right. Not even the beasts of the Earth act otherwise.” (80–81)