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Foreshadowing
Explanation and Analysis—The Messiah:
During Paul’s visit to the bar in Chapter 9, James Lasher picks up a conversation with him about plans for revolution. In sharing with Paul his prophecies—in which an uprising puts an end to the “crusading spirit of the managers and engineers”—the reverend foreshadows a seismic change:
“That is a frightening question,” said Lasher, “and also my favorite rationalization for drinking. This is my last drink, incidentally; I don’t like being drunk. I drink because I’m scared—just a little scared, so I don’t have to drink much. Things, gentlemen, are ripe for a phony Messiah, and when he comes, it’s sure to be a bloody business.”
“Messiah?”
"Sooner or later someone’s going to catch the imagination of these people with some new magic."
Lasher foreshadows a popular revolt against the country’s technological worship and obsession with productivity. Laying out his vision of a “class war,” he predicts that a Messiah will manage to stir up a “feeling of participation, the feeling of being needed on earth—hell, dignity.” Lasher eagerly awaits someone who can helm the revolution.
As one of the Ghost Shirt Society’s leaders, Lasher's suggestions are not particularly prophetic—Lasher anticipates the uprising that he and Finnerty mastermind. Neither does the revolution pan out as planned. The Ghost Shirt Society manages to capture Ilium, but the disruption lasts just a few days. Paul, Lasher, and Finnerty turn themselves into the government as momentum sputter out and the protest fails. They lose Pittsburgh and, notably, fail to take down EPICAC XIV. As their fellow revolutionaries start repairing the old Orange-O machine, the movement has all but ended itself.
But Lasher ultimately finds his “phony Messiah” in Paul. As the disgraced manager of Ilium Works resigns, gets arrested, and testifies in court, Lasher awakens a leader who speaks up for the cause as powerfully as he can. Paul affirms his involvement in the Ghost Shirt Society and declares as “many poignant, anti-machine, pro-Ghost Shirt Society things as he could over a nationwide television network.” As Lasher predicted, he fills in the shoes of a maverick who leads his people toward change.
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