Because Kate makes the Reverend question his own position with God, he decides that “she is an instrument of God, bearing the message of truth” (Anderson 92), and the Reverend uses this reasoning to example his desire without having to explore himself. The window that he broke comes to explain the Reverend’s conclusion about how to explain his desires. When the Reverend sees Kate naked, “her figure, slim and strong, looked like the figure of the boy in the presence of the Christ on the leaded window” (Anderson 91). The Reverend’s proclamation of “God has appeared to me in the person of Kate Swift, the school teacher, kneeling naked on a bed” (Anderson 92) suggests that his attraction to Kate Swift is godly and not a sin. In the window, the boy looks at Christ with “rapt eyes” or is looking at Christ with complete fascination. Christ consumes the boy.
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He spends so long waiting for her to appear that he begins to tremble because of the cold and starts to run a fever. The narrator tells the readers that “Curtis Hartman came near dying from the effects of that night of waiting in the church” (Anderson 91). The Reverend explains his reaction as Kate being Christ because his scenario allows him to keep from breaking the regular routine of his life. He can still consider himself a godly man and without sin if Kate Swift is an instrument of God (Burner 366). The shattering of the entire window can show the breaking of his old way of thought into the present world. The room where he used to watch Kate in secret is now open to the whole world for whomever to consider his space. The Reverend’s desire shows a way of handling desire that he cannot fulfill, but his desire also shows a character’s need to desire Christ but inability to do so. All the characters are trap in a need, at some point or another, to interact in some way with another
He spends so long waiting for her to appear that he begins to tremble because of the cold and starts to run a fever. The narrator tells the readers that “Curtis Hartman came near dying from the effects of that night of waiting in the church” (Anderson 91). The Reverend explains his reaction as Kate being Christ because his scenario allows him to keep from breaking the regular routine of his life. He can still consider himself a godly man and without sin if Kate Swift is an instrument of God (Burner 366). The shattering of the entire window can show the breaking of his old way of thought into the present world. The room where he used to watch Kate in secret is now open to the whole world for whomever to consider his space. The Reverend’s desire shows a way of handling desire that he cannot fulfill, but his desire also shows a character’s need to desire Christ but inability to do so. All the characters are trap in a need, at some point or another, to interact in some way with another