The University of Notre Dame is a great place to be when working on anything related to Religion and Literature. This week, I participated in the ongoing Mellon/ISLA Conversion and Literature Workshop series, presenting my work on the narrative shape of conversion in Kingsley’s Alton Locke. Douglas Hedley of Clare College, University of Cambridge, responded to papers presented by Margaret McMillan, Marco Emerson Hernandez and myself.
Below is an excerpt that sums up the argument:
Kingsley’s Alton Locke challenges the normativity of the sui generis, authoritative “self” traditionally associated with novels of individual development by using the evangelical conversion narrative as a formal structure for Alton’s story. While this model of selfhood, associated with conversion narratives, is significantly different from what we’ve come to expect in scholarship on the novel, it is not without historical, religious and class precedent. However, Kingsley’s appropriation of the conversion narrative form is not wholesale. Because of his own theological commitments, he emphasizes the Incarnation rather than the Atonement in Alton’s conversion scene. This reveals an instability in the evangelical conversion narrative’s form, because evangelical narratives assert that God re-creates the individual at the moment of conversion but, in their form, they show the individual doing the work of self-creation through the decision to convert. Somewhat surprisingly, the result of Kingsley’s different theological emphasis is that Jesus emerges as a central character in Alton’s character development, an authorizing figure who reconstitutes Alton’s character, not through an act of Alton’s will or desire, but through his very presence in the story.
Since this conference paper is taken from the chapter on Kingsley in my dissertation, I was delighted with the very positive response from Prof. Hedley, as well as from the other professors and graduate students in attendance.
These workshops have been really engaging and this one was no exception. A great deal of credit goes to Deborah Forteza and John Marchese for their work and skill in organizing these workshops. Thank you both!
