Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Man Who Was Thursday, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Order, Chaos, and God
Identity
Tradition vs. Modernity
The Purpose of Art
Summary
Analysis
Syme walks down a corridor and passes the Secretary, who is dressed in an elegant black robe with a white stripe running down the middle. Syme realizes that this outfit represents the first day, when God created light. It perfectly fits the Secretary’s harsh but energetic philosopher’s personality. Similarly, Syme’s own clothes fit his personality as a poet. Next, Syme encounters Ratcliffe, whose green garment represents the third day (when God created the earth and plants).
The Book of Genesis gives a new meaning to the seven main characters’ names: they now represent the six days that God spent creating the universe (and the seventh day, on which God rested). Each of their outfits clearly associates them with one of these days, and together, they represent the whole process of creation. Thus, Chesterton finally resolves the novel’s longstanding conflict between order (creation) and chaos (destruction). After spending nearly the whole book mired in confusion and trying to overcome chaos, the detectives finally achieve order—but only thanks to divine intervention.
Themes
Syme, the Secretary, and Ratcliffe pass through a gateway and into a vast garden. It’s full of dancing men who are dressed as “every shape in Nature,” from animals and trees to lampposts and ships. They find a set of seven chairs, where Gogol, Dr. Bull, and the Professor are already waiting for them. Gogol’s silver dress represents the separation of the waters on the second day, while the Professor’s purple dress is covered in fish and birds to represent the creation of those creatures on the fifth day. Dr. Bull’s red-gold outfit, which represents the sixth day, depicts animals and a human man.
The six detectives come together and see that they represent the six days of creation. In this last chapter, Chesterton’s religious symbolism grows more and more overt: the dancing men represent the broad variety of God’s creation, from the animals and plants that He created at the beginning of the universe to the modern technologies that He allowed humans to develop. So far, Chesterton has presented humankind’s blind faith in technology as dangerous and naïve, but this scene suggests that technology can fit smoothly into the broader scheme of the universe when people recognize that it doesn’t make them superior to God.
Themes
Literary Devices
The carnival cheers on the six men when they sit. Sunday is not there, and the Secretary comments that he may be “dead in a field,” but then he appears and takes his seat. He wears an outfit of “pure and terrible white.” The carnival dancers continue for a long time, until they start separating into couples gathering around giant pots of wine and ale, which brew beneath the bonfire that roars on top of a great house. But the bonfire eventually goes out and the revelers start disappearing into the house.
Sunday’s “pure and terrible white” outfit associates him with divinity itself. But since he sits next to the other six men, he doesn’t appear to truly represent God. The rest of this chapter will suggest an alternative explanation: he represents the Messiah, God incarnate on earth, who is charged with bringing salvation to humankind.
Themes
At last, Sunday speaks. He explains that he appeared to the other men in the dark, as a commanding voice, to send them to war. “I am the Sabbath,” he announces: “I am the peace of God.” But the Secretary objects. He cannot forgive Sunday, he says, because he doesn’t understand how Sunday could be both the dark and the light, his friend and his enemy, a source of terror and a source of peace. The other detectives express the same doubt (besides Dr. Bull, who is happy and falls asleep). Sunday stays silent for a long time, then declares that someone else still has to complain, too.
When Sunday identifies himself, he once again raises more questions than he answers. Readers may sympathize with the Secretary’s doubt: why would “the peace of God” send the detectives to fight a pointless battle against a nonexistent anarchist enemy? The answer to this question lies in this very scene: Sunday has shown the detectives “the peace of God” by leading them down the road to faith. In the process, he has helped them defeat the overwhelming doubt and uncertainty that plagued them throughout the entire novel. But the only way he could do this was by bringing them to a point of utter spiritual desperation, at which nothing made sense any longer. At this point, they finally saw the paradox inherent in their struggle against meaninglessness, and they recognized that the only way out of this paradox was through faith.
Themes
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A black-clad swordsman approaches the group: Lucian Gregory. Gabriel Syme gasps and calls Gregory “the real anarchist.” Half-awake, Dr. Bull mumbles that Satan has come. Gregory declares that he wants to destroy the whole world and hates everything—including, above all, Gabriel Syme. But Syme replies that he doesn’t hate Gregory. Gregory complains that the other men haven’t truly suffered or lived life, because they represent law and the government. In response, Syme passionately explains that the forces of law and order also suffer. Their fight for good gives them the same “glory and isolation” as anarchists.
Lucian Gregory is “the real anarchist” because he’s the only anarchist character in the novel who wasn’t actually a detective in disguise. In this scene, he plays the role of the devil, challenging God’s power and the detectives’ faith. (His name, Lucian—like Lucifer—foreshadowed this role.) Gregory repeats his argument from the beginning of the book: he thinks that people can only truly create beauty and leave a mark on the world by destroying things, because he views upholding morality and creating things as just fulfilling someone else’s (God’s) plan. But Syme holds up the events of the entire novel as evidence that fighting for God, justice, and morality is challenging, significant, and dangerous. Chesterton’s message is clear: there’s nothing braver or more noble than serving God.
Themes
Finally, Gregory asks Sunday if he has ever suffered. Sunday’s face grows to enormous proportions, then disappears into darkness. Syme hears, “Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?” And then he comes to. It isn’t sudden, like waking up from a dream. Instead, Syme gradually realizes that he’s walking down a country road with Lucian Gregory. Dawn breaks, and the sky’s colors and the light breeze are impossibly beautiful. Syme notices that he’s in Saffron Park, and he comes to Gregory’s garden, where he sees Rosamond Gregory cutting flowers.
Sunday’s response to Gregory, “Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?,” is a quote from the Gospel of Matthew. This is Jesus’s way of telling James and John that they cannot possibly imagine (or match up to) the profound suffering that he is soon to endure on behalf of humankind. Sunday’s message is clear: he has suffered, and Gregory will never understand him. This line also strongly suggests that Sunday has represented the Messiah all along. Then, Chesterton ends the novel with another characteristic plot twist: the whole story was a fantasy. Gabriel Syme was imagining the whole thing during a leisurely walk (and conversation about anarchism) with Lucian Gregory. But the fantasy worked: it reminded him that goodness and beauty do exist in the universe and that the best way to partake of them is through faith.
Themes
Literary Devices
