The Eighth Day is written as a history, a narrative describing the story of a family affected
by an unusual event. The focus is on the plan of life and how the people fit into it, even
though those people cannot see the whole of the plan. Living life in this way is the
definition of faith. Wilder, however, doesn't seem concerned for the individual characters
and their fate; however, he focuses on how each individual affects the next and this cause
and effect creates a story of its own.
This treatment of his characters can be witnessed in the tracing of their genealogy
and in their fate of open finality. We must ask ourselves, however, why Wilder
concentrates on just one family in one small town if he is trying to convey a theme
applicable to all of humanity. The plot is about a murder in a small community named
Coaltown, Illinois followed by an assisted escape in which the accused and convicted man
was rescued on his way to his execution without ever lifting a finger. John Ashley is
accused of killing Breckenridge Lansing and later rescued, only to continue his escape
journey in South America and perform many virtuous and "faithful" acts. More central to
the novel, however, is the development of characters directly and indirectly involved with
this event. A chapter is devoted to Ashley's son Roger as he goes to Chicago to make
money for the family since the normal breadwinner has been unnaturally taken away. Even
the characters' histories were traced in the narrative in an attempt to give a picture with
much breadth. For instance, Wilder gives us a portrait of Eustacia Lansing, the wife of the
murdered man, her family life before marriage, and her parents' backgrounds with their
families. The characters are followed before and after the unnatural phenomenon by the
author, and the events of life are tied together in a culminating philosophy that is lurking
underneath the fabric of the story throughout.
His choice of subject for this novel is a family that easily relates to all families. He
obviously sees some importance in the everyday activities of life and interactions with
others, as much or more than the unusual or extraordinary circumstances (the murder of
Breckenridge Lansing) that chance their way into life. After covering the facts of the
murder and miraculous rescue, other details of characters' lives became more central to
the plot-line. The way in which facts were revealed about the story is another aspect of
life that fascinates Wilder as he writes this novel. The event of the murder and rescue was
the constant throughout the novel, but as we found out more about the details, the more
we could decipher God's hand in it all. In The Eighth Day, just as humans could not see
beyond their sphere of influence, narrative became the way that the reader could not see
past the sphere of influence that he/she is given. We were limited in our knowledge of
events only in what was left out of the narrative. Thornton Wilder used this technique to
simulate the experience of being in this family, living this life. He refrained from giving an
omniscient point of view because we would not have been able to understand the futile
struggle his characters must endure from their limited viewpoint.
The idea of the tapestry itself came from the novel. While talking to the Native
American priest who John Ashley left a letter for him, Ashley heard a parable about a
tapestry. On one side of this was a mess of tangled knots and unorganized fabrics. On the
other, was a beautiful design that you could step back and see. The priest told Roger that
only some are able to get even a glimpse of the design side of that tapestry. The rest are
only able to discern tangles and knots out of life. And only God in his infinite wisdom can
forever know what lies behind the meaning of the design in the tapestry. A glimpse,
however, is enough to give us faith to continue our lives. By studying the characters'
relation to the parable, we can see that it was in the playing field of life that God has
worked out his destiny, and the players became less important.
Not knowing the other side of the tapestry is what proves our faith as human
beings, and being able to live out our lives believing that a design exists is our greatest
task. Personalities are formed by their abilities to see that design and their ability to wait
patiently for the answer that lies within its pattern. We see Constance crumble in her
inability to keep the faith of the pattern, Lily survives with a disillusioned faith, not about
the things most important to her, but to her secondary concerns. Sophia has a grasp on
life, but she is holding on to hopes of the past instead of continuously looking for new
opportunities in life. Felicite, to be shown in greater detail, is an example of sublimity
ruined by circumstance. Eustacia is a woman who could always perceive the presence of a
design. Beatrice is a character much like Sophia, but even more attached to the past days,
and cannot see any pattern in the future. Roger Ashley, much like his father, is the one
person who has been able to live his life in the present with the full assurance that he has
become part of the tapestry of God's plan.
It is Wilder's unique appeal to American life that brings his readers back to the
shelves for another story. What they witnessed in "Our Town" left a lasting effect on the
people of America, and he brings that small-town flavor back to Coaltown, Illinois in The
Eighth Day. Wilder has not just looked at American life as a casual observer, he has been
bold enough to impose his spirituality on his characters as well. This spirituality was an
element that attracted readers in the late 1960s. The connection that Wilder makes is one
that has never been attempted on as large a stage, that is the connection to the spirituality
of people and those people's routine activities of life. The focus on the peripheral events
and consequences that occur in the lives of characters in this novel was his way of
downplaying the importance of the central event, the murder and miraculous rescue, to
show his readers the design in the plan instead of one thread in the tapestry. By observing
of one group of people, Wilder detailed his vision of spirituality by demonstrating the
investment he has made into the lives of Americans to embody the essence of spirituality.
Readers recognize this as one of Wilder's strengths and they praise him in his mastery of
capturing the spirituality of life once again.
Many non-fiction and fiction books on the bestseller list were of a religious theme
at a time that could have very easily influenced Wilder's writing style and the themes of his
novel. For the most part, however, Wilder proved to be an individual in thought,
gathering his ideas from his family background, his teachers at school, and philosopher's
with whom he came in contact. The subjects of his novels looked towards religious
themes around the time when other books became popular for the same reason. For
instance, books by G.A.O. Armstrong and Fulton Oursler, Catherine Marshall, and Tim
Bishop topped the non-fiction bestseller list in the 1950s. Books by Chaim Potok
repeatedly made appearances on the fiction bestseller list. With the Cold War in full force,
a mixture of cultures and ideas around the world allowed Wilder to form an his ideal
spirituality based on a generic form of Christianity, Buddhism, Native American nature
worship, and Greek mythology. All can be seen in The Eighth Day at particular points
shaping the two most important characters' thoughts
Wilder's novel The Eighth Day represented an atypical novel on the bestseller list
in its reasons for popularity. There are a couple others that followed this particular style.
Wilder became wildly popular for his play "Our Town" and for his other bestseller The
Woman of Andros. After many years of working on other projects, Wilder released this
book as his final capitulating novel. The book was popular for about six months but then
virtually disappeared. Part of the reason for its initial success was that the first edition was
a book of the month selection. This shows the confidence that the public had in the
writer, not the book. Another selection that followed this format is Joseph Keller's
Something Happened. Heller became a well acclaimed author for his novel Catch 22, but
his next book was somewhat of a disappointment to his fans and critics. It is the author's
own popularity that sold these books as soon as they reached the shelves.
Wilder's popularity can be attributed to the way he showed virtues of the grand
sense in the small-town personalities of the characters created in his novels. For instance,
Roger Ashley went to Chicago after his father's escape to find a job with the goal of
earning enough money to support his family at home. There was no greed in his goal, nor
selfishness in his means. Wilder explicitly said how Roger didn't care much for ways to
get excessive amounts of money even if the opportunity presented itself. When
contemplating his work ethic while breadwinning in Chicago, Wilder says, "Roger seldom
thought of his father, but his father was serving him as the measure of a man. He had
never known him to be guilty of acting." Also showing Wilder's view on his character's
work ethic-for the sake of the ethic, not the want of money, "Crowds make you think of
money... Represents a certain amount of money of work and the quality of the work.
Biggest lie under the sun." This showed Wilder's mockery of the greed that prevails in
modern big cities and even in the mainstream culture of America. Roger's immunity to
that pitfall was his redeeming characteristic. This was one of the virtues cleverly
abstracted from life that many average Americans can look up to in Wilder's writing.
In being realistic, and to show contrast to the figures of extreme virtue in The
Eighth Day Wilder had members of the family that were not the perfect men and women
of faith as Roger, John, or Eustacia were. Lily, for instance, was a woman who would
refuse to look beyond her own happiness into the life of her mother, brother, or father.
She always sook to further her career (she became a singer and moved to Chicago to
pursue it further) and looked out for her personal happiness. She demonstrated this when
she had children out of wedlock, which may hurt the reputation of her family, and her
mother could become upset. She does fairly well when she moves to Chicago in her
career, but it appears as if she could not reach true happiness in her position. A failure to
achieve happiness is an indicator that a character has not been able to perceive the design
of life, which usually is revealed to those with unselfish goals. Those that do realize the
design are aiming for the promotion of the design, not of themselves.
Sophia, to demonstrate the previous idea, had reputable motives and is a very
dedicated girl, but she was short sighted in her goals. She aimed to make her brother
happy, and what she does, she believes, will bring back her father sooner or else will cure
her mother of her depression. It was her goals that were lacking, she had faith only in her
brother's plan that the two of them could keep the family surviving through this ordeal.
She lacked the faith to see the design beyond her brother, and she lacked faith because she
couldn't see that design. Whether she couldn't see the design for lack of faith or not is a
question left up for the reader to decide. Her mother's depression, similarly cannot be
cured because she only had eyes for John Ashley. She loved her children but not in any
way near the soul encompassing feelings she had for her husband. Leaving the Elms was
probably the hardest thing that Beata Ashley had to do, because it meant giving up the
idea that her husband would come home, the very thing she had been living day in and day
out with the hope of happening.
The frustration of life in this episode is also something with which readers can
identify. It reinforces our own doubts about purpose, faith, and perseverance in what we
live for. The everyday struggles that Sophia and her mother endured are some of the most
prevalent shortcomings in Americans all over the country. No matter what walk of life
you are, you forget your purpose as you get wrapped up in providing for a family, your
own self-interests, and believing in a dream that isn't your own. Only the characters
whose motives are rooted in the sound principles of life will find happiness in Thornton
Wilder's novel.
George Lansing was a character that was able to see the design in the tapestry,
even if it was ill-timed and ill-fated. He was weary all the time for the interests of his
mother, Eustacia, because of the unsound relationship between her and Breckenridge.
Without the whole truth, his father's fault, George thought he was doing a service to his
mother who wouldn't stick up for her own well-being. George was a boy whose energy
was misdirected partly from growing up alongside Roger and his family. George was
friends with John Ashley, which is ironic because that was the father that he most needed,
and instead he grew up under the hands of Breckenridge Lansing with his "method of
?making a man' out of George." (331) George was very attached to his mother, perhaps
to seek parental love which he could not find in his father. In one passage, Wilder says a
lot about George's protective nature for his mother and his overall position in the tapestry
of life. George had gotten sick and needed to have his tonsils removed and Ashley was
out of town. His mother told him of her home: "She talked of these things with no one
else. It was understood that she would someday take him there; he would take her there,
in fact. George was devout... he wanted to kneel at the very spot where she had knelt."
(333) Wilder admitting that one of his characters is devout is as close as he comes to
telling us that George held the gift of vision. The proximity of this statement to a mention
of his caring for his mother is not coincidental. Wilder is showing us that George has seen
his purpose in the care for his mother. She tells him these stories because she wishes she
were there and knows the mistake she has made. George senses this in her and wants so
badly to pull her out. He is tragically mistaken, however, to the source of her depression.
The importance lies in the heart of he who cares so much to realize that he must make his
mother happy because of the deficiency in character of his father.
The conclusions before made are not those which Wilder makes. He gives us the
characters situations and their position in the ranks of high virtue, but he leaves for the
reader to imply the reactions in life that allow the virtues to manifest themselves within
each of the characters. The reader is happy to know that he has entered into the world
that Wilder has created and the mystery is the problem of life and virtues, not of a murder
in small town, America. Events such as that occur everyday, but exceptional men of
exceptional virtue are a rare find. This is the Wilder that created the characters of "Our
Town" and The Bridge of San Luis Rey that brought readers, and the Book of the Month
Club back for Wilder's final comprehensive novel.
Eustacia Lansing was a character that has seen the design in the mess of her own
life. Her history is given so that we can see from what kind of family she came, and how
her position at the present seems unbearable without a glimpse of the bigger picture. She
comes from the beautiful island of St. Kitts, and lived a life of a girl in the sun, a
picturesque princess childhood. She was won over to Breckenridge much like Don Juan,
he a fair skinned young crowd pleaser, and she an innocent island girl. She, for a large
part due to events in her parents marriage was looking outside her own race. "They
extended her knowledge of what could be expected by women married to a dark-haired,
dark-eyed male." (319) Breckenridge was a man of appearances, very well at first
meetings, but his determination and perseverance were not his best traits. "Among the
women he won all hearts, including that of Eustacia Sims. For years, thereafter, Eustacia
was to ask herself, tormentedly: how? why?" (317) This was Eustacia's position. She
had been deceived by first appearances, and had the virtue to stay in her marriage to a man
who was not unbearable, but was not the expected continuation of her princess-quality
lifestyle. He was not John Ashley. Her dedication to her husband remained steadfast in
mind and heart as well as her actions, even at the point on his sickbed at which he was
calling to question her loyalty to him. These are all virtues which make her a woman of
faith, one fit to see the design of the tapestry. She even saw in Breckenridge, and helped
bring out in him just before his untimely death, the love for and remorse for the way he
acted towards his wife and children. She fits this description of people of faith, "They
assemble and inspirit the despairing." (107) That was her devotion that gave her the
esteemed status so uneasily afforded by Wilder.
Finally, John Ashley was the man of faith in the novel, although he never makes it
back to his family. The reunion of the Ashley family is the happy ending that everybody
expects in a novel of this type. Wilder, however, flips the coin of life and doesn't allow
that to take place. Ashley then had to find his niche elsewhere. He had always figured
himself a family man, but now on the run he took to what came natural to him. He always
sook to improve the conditions of others. He forgot himself and his own troubles and
allowed himself to help those with whom he came into contact. The description that fits
Ashley in the people of faith is, "They know themselves, but their self is not the only
window through which they view their existence. They explore daily the exercise of
freedom. Their eyes are on the future." (107) Ashley only looked to the future in his
opportunities that he was given in his exodus. He also used his freedom to choose not to
dwell on his own problems, but to perceive how he could solve the greater problems of
the sphere in which he lives in all places. His vision is what drew other people to him, just
like the work ethic of Roger drew people to him. Both of the Ashleys were able,
however, to separate their feelings for the very people they worked with and helped,
because they recognized that they were performing for a higher order rather than just
those with which they interacted. John Ashley was shaped by his environment just like
any other person in life. His Grandmother Ashley showed him the love which became his
dominant good trait in life. Another, which Wilder half facetiously called unimportant he
adapted from his father. His father was a miser, a very tight budgeted man. "...he made
his contribution to the church; but any financial demand that exceeded his precise budget
tortured him." (148) John Ashley had actually become the opposite, a trait that didn't
help his family much after he had been taken from them, but also seemed to help mold his
children's characters. Roger took after his father and as is before noted, his indifference
to money helped him to concentrate on the joys of life and the fulfillment of his station in
life. This is one example of the many efforts Wilder made to weave character traits,
virtues, and vices throughout the history of the characters' backgrounds to create the
effect of one plan and many actors performing for the purpose of unfolding that plan.
Those character traits, at the same time, are those which are easily recognizable in
friends and people that we come into contact with every day in life. They are also not just
puppets acting out the traits, they are breathed to life by Wilder in his attempt to make real
for us his final thesis of this book. That is, one character trait cannot be applied to any
person to make that person virtuous or worthy of seeing the design in the tapestry. His
thesis states that we are all these actors, real people in every sense that live our lives for
the purpose of fitting into that plan and performing our role well. The next conclusion
Wilder leaves for us is now that we've seen one group of people finding their place in the
tapestry, for us to find our own place.
"There is much talk of a design in the arras. Some are certain they see it. Some
see what they have been told to see. Some remember that they saw it once but
have lost it. Some are strengthened by seeing a pattern wherein the oppressed
and exploited of the earth are gradually emerging from their bondage. Some
find strength in the conviction that there is nothing to see. Some" (435)
These last words of the novel give the challenge of the novel back to the people who
enjoyed it for what they read. For enjoying Wilder's ability to find the everyday virtues
and vices of life in each of his characters, they must now look inward and examine their
own virtues and vices and see if their walk is a walk of faith. They can look at Roger and
see if their work ethic and ability to avoid greed helps them to look toward a vision or
hinders them from that vision. They can look at Lilly and see if their own self-interests are
preventing a wider perspective on life. They can look at Sophia and see if nearsightedness
is infecting them and preventing them from looking past the task at hand to the overall
importance of their lifelong task. They can see if they have become dependent on
someone in this world for a vision instead of looking for a personal mission in fulfilling
the plan for their life. They can observe Eustacia and her son George in their devotion to
loved ones and see if there really are pure motives for their love and dedication. If not, it
may impede a further vision to what is most important for happiness, that glimpse in the
design. And lastly they could look to John Ashley to see if they can look past their own
problems to those of others around them and forge into the future to seek out the next
step in the pattern for themselves. In all of this, the readers are reminded, by Wilder's
style of historical review from a timeless position as God would have, through these
families that the characters' lives are only "a hand's-breadth" of the tapestry, which is
important on a much grander scale. To appreciate Wilder's novel for the way it
characteristically points out these particulars in representative lives implies by his last
words that the reader must live its meaning and aim to fulfill his/her part of the design.
Wilder's fans came back to his novel for his style, seen in his earlier best-selling
novels and plays. They got what they asked for and more. Wilder came out with a novel
that spoke to his readers and that seems to have received mixed reactions. Wilder's name
recognition afforded him the opportunity to write a book to the bestseller list and tell
millions what was on his mind. Book of the month club picked up his book on recognition
of an author that had a reputation with audiences for his ability to analyze life of the
average Americans and comment on it implicitly. This book has done that in a new and
unique way.
Wilder, Thornton. The Eighth Day. Harper & Row Publishers