The Myth of the Fall and Walker Percy's Last Gentleman

PETER LANG

Bernadette Prochaska

Williston Bibb Barrett experiences a sense that something is wrong in the world and in his life. The evidence in the novels of Walker Percy which deal with the life of Will Barrett, The Last Gentleman and The Second Coming, points to the presence of the Myth of the Fall. Experiencing imbalance and indirection, Will Barrett is the fallen man in a fallen world. However, the cycle of falling and rising resonates with joy and grace as the protagonist journeys toward salvation.

Table of Contents:

• The Last Gentleman
• Getting a Footing: Will Barrett and the Quest for Balance
• The Uneasy Will and the Uneasy Family
• Kitty and Will: An Uneasy Love
• Williston Barrett and the Gleam in Rita Vaught's Eye
• Shame and Death: Will and Jamie and Bare-faced Embarrassment
• Adam, the Uneasy Quester: Will Barrett and Sutter Vaught
• One of the Elected Ones: The Radical Valentine Vaught
• The Second Coming
• Signs and Symptoms: Will Barrett and the Golf Course
• The Girl in the Greenhouse and Will Barrett
• The Sleeping Tiger and Will Barrett in the Cave
• Guns and the Nunally Place: Will Barrett and the Swamp
• Kumonzakvaikvai Birds and Communitas: Will Barrett's City

Bernadette Prochaska received her masters degree from Notre Dame University and her doctoral degree from Marquette University. She is a Franciscan Sister (FSPA) from La Crosse, Wisconsin. Her experience includes publishing in The Pacific Voice, Annalecta Husserliana and Sisters Today. Dr. Prochaska also spent ten years as Superintendent of Schools for the Diocese of Agana in Guam.

Publication Date: 1992