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“Touching Him”: The Doubting Thomas Subtext in M. R. James’s “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”
Ist Teil von
Renascence, 2022-01, Vol.74 (1), p.45-58
Ort / Verlag
Milwaukee: Marquette University Press
Erscheinungsjahr
2022
Link zum Volltext
Quelle
Literature Online (LION)
Beschreibungen/Notizen
Born the son of an Evangelical Anglican minister, Montague Rhodes James, "Monty" to family and friends, was arguably the best educated ghost story writer who ever lived: "He had all sorts of letters after his name." His tales, collected in four slim volumes, often touch upon, lightly for the most part, biblical motifs or themes. In his most celebrated horror tale, "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad," James alludes—subtly as was his wont—to the story of Thomas, the disciple who, "skeptical about the resurrection," demanded tangible proof of the event, an actual "touching," before he would deign to believe in the miraculous. In James's most famous effort in the supernatural genre, another doubting Thomas, in this case an arrogant disciple of modern science and its methods, demands the same proof, a "touching," before he will believe. And when that proof comes, it changes him forever just as it did "Thomas, one of the twelve."