Quotes from the Spire

Authors Avatar
Quotes from the Spire

CHARACTERS

Jocelin

"He shot an arrow of love" (after the chancellor) p8

Agape love and shows patronising attitude

"He thinks he's a saint" "proud" "ignorant" p13

This is two dean's talking about him that he doesn't realise this emphasises his characteristics of pride and ignorance

"It is my guardian angel" "Lord; I thank thee that though has kept me humble" p22

This demonstrates his delusion and pride as he thinks he is humble but contradictory to this he is clearly not humble as he assumes that God has sent him an angel

"Did you see-see anything behind me there as I knelt?" p25

Shows his huge arrogance as the Catholic church of the time disencouraged visions but he is prepared to go against his superiors to try and prove that he is better than others

(Jocelin claims that he is "not half as beaky" p23

This shows his vanity

"I believe in one God- father in God Jocelin" p27

Golding juxtaposing the letter and the creed creates an antiphonal. It may suggest that Jocelin is his own God thereby showing that Jocelin is not a true Christian and that the Spire is being built because he wants it to be built

(Jocelin) "Made a defensive sign at the bottom of the pit" p 79

This shows Jocelin's superstition which goes against his Christian faith and his initial impractical help in the construction of the Spire

(Jocelin describes the pit as) "Some form of life, that which ought not to be seen" p79 and that "two hands bore a head of Dean Jocelin and hurled it into the pit" p81

This symbolism is an allusion to Jocelin's unconscious and the emerging Spire comes to represent Jocelin's sexual frustration, in the form of a phallic symbol emerging from his unconscious

"As for the whole building itself, the bible in stone, it sank from glorification to homiletics" p51

As jocelin begins to realise that the Spire is being built due to adultery his vision diminishes from glory to normality

"She will keep him here"p64

This is emphasised as there is a break in the paragraph for this line and it is simplistic compared to previous lengthy and rambling lines. It is important as Jocelin goes against his faith and abandons the women he loves to hell for the sake of the spire

"The renewing of life of the world was a filthy thing a rising tide of muck"p 58

Jocelin's attitude to sex is abnormal as, as a priest he should be encouraging children

(Jocelin) "Turned his head from, side to side, the more so, because he was locked in his head with only a few things"

This shows that Joclelin is awakening to his unconscious

(Sleep has been a) "Ground for repairs rather than recovery"

Shows his irreparable mental and emotional imbalance begin to feel pity as we know what we will now see is his inevitable decline

"I never came up against beldane"p137

He knows nothing about women

"This have I done for my true love" p137

Shows he did love Goody

"I'm not very intelligent

Change from being proud

"My faith... what faith"p190

Shows Jocelin realising that he was never a real Christian

"You were all over my knees like a dog"p200

Hints that Jocelin is homosexual

"I'm a building, with a vast cellarage where the rats live"p210

Shows Jocelin's growing awareness of his repressed emotions

"It's simpler to believe in miracles"

Shows his initial faith and his regard for facts and evidence as optional extras
Join now!


"Exhilarated like a child running through lowers" p69

Shows his childlike qualities

"The devil was allowed to assail him in a particularly loathsome way" p76

Demonstrates his sexual repression

"Now I've come in pain and in shame, to ask you to forgive me"p211

Demonstrates that he wants to repent

"have mercy, have mercy...have mercy"p136

Shows he has a consciousness emphasises through tricolon

Entered) some new kind of Life"p217

Indicates his change

"The services of the church came to an end"

Guilty of absenteeism

"He ...

This is a preview of the whole essay