Structure in Morte d'Urban

Structure in Morte d'Urban WALTER H. CLARK, JR. We can trace three stages in the critical reception of J. F. Powers' novel. The outrage of early parochial reviewers is expressed in the words of one clerical writer who declares that Powers needs to try themes in a grander manner than his mean spirited satire. He has been peering too long at a few soiled pores on the face of the Catholic priesthood while appearing to forget the vision of the Transfiguration .1 The first academic reviewers get a bit further into the book but a number of them identify so completely with the Father Urban of the first half that they miss the significance of the concluding chapters: The world finally exacts its price more savagely than Father Urban, for all his sophistication, is prepared to expect. When at last he becomes Provincial of the Order, he has lost his trust in himself and his powers; he has died "not in body, but in soul." ' The views I advance will argue against the foregoing positions and support those of reviewers such as Thomas Merton, who was, as far as I can tell, the first to put his finger on the key to understanding the novel. The fact is that the "death" of Fr. Urban is the death of a superficial self leading to the resurrection of a deeper, more noble and more spiritual personality. The novel is more than a ribald satire on the clergy. It is a valid and penetrating study of the psychology of a priest in what is essentially a spiritual conflict.' Walter Clark teaches at the University of Michigan. 'Thomas Rowan, C.SS.R., "Morte D'Urban: A Novel About Priests," /. F. Powers, cd. Fallon Evans (St. Louis: Herder Hook Co., 1968), p. 105. "Martin Price, Review of Morte D'Urban in Yale Review, ns LlI (December, 1962), p. 26-1. "Thomas Merton, "Morte D'Urban: Two Celebrations," Worship, XXXVl (November, 1962), p. 645. 20STRUCTURE IN MORTE DVRBAX This is nicely seconded by Thomas R. Preston in a recent article: From a Christian perspective, then, the psychological death of Urban is really the beginning of spiritual life and, as indirectly suggested in the title of the novel, means the Pauline death of the "urban" or worldly in him.4 The conflict implicit in the death of one self and the birth of another can also be seen as a conflict between the values of God and the values of mammon as played out, not only in Fadier Urban's soul, but also in plot and tone of the novel itself. This conflict is the fountain from which all ironies flow, implicit even in the relations between authorial intelligence and reader. The reader who accepts the author's bait judges Urban by conventional American standards of success throughout the first half of the novel, only to find his interpretation stultified by the events of the second half. These can only be accorded their proper structural significance if seen in the light of traditional Christian doctrine . There is thus a very real sense inVwhich die novel is didactic, since successful interpretation requires that die secular reader go through the cognitive equivalent of Father Urban's spiritual conversion. The conquest of Billy Cosgrove, with which the action begins, leads to a smart new downtown address for die Clementine Order, a triumph in mammon. The occasion calls for some clever double dealing with Urban's less sophisticated fellows at the novitiate outside Chicago. After accepting the new offices on behalf of the order he goes for a ride in Billy's flaming red convertible. When a policeman draws alongside, Billy points to Urban's clericals, implying that they are on their way to a death bed. The first fruits of mammon's triumph are seen to be chicanery and false witness, but so cleverly disguised as not to alarm. It is easy for the reader to participate in Father Urban's anger and dismay when notified by the Provincial of his rustication. "No, it didn't make sense, even by Clementine standards, which had been hard enough to fathom before but which had now become positively inscrutable" (29).5...