The Man Who Was Thursday

The story of The Man Who Was Thursday, It is a very symbolic Story. The writer G.K. Chesterton takes you inside a mysterious anarchist group. One of the more symbolic characters of the story is Sunday. Sunday is a very intricate character and Chesterton decodes Sunday in a very spiritual way. He is portrayed in a very interesting way. Chesterton suggests ideas of that of which Sunday represents. In the book The Man Who Was Thursday, takes place in London, in the early 1900's. It stars the main character Syme. Syme is a poet who was recruited to a secret police force. The police force that he is recruited into is looking to stop an anarchy group. He gets into the organization and becomes a top member of the group. He is sworn to not tell the police about the group by a fellow poet named Gregory. The top member Sunday has organized this anarchy group and has named the top members of the group after the days of the week. Thursday or Syme, learns that the other days of the week members are also undercover police officers. By the time he figures this out, the whole town has turned on them as anarchists. Even through everything Thursday never breaks his word and tells the police of the group. In the end he is rewarded for keeping his word and staying true., but who is Sunday? Sunday, portrayed by Chesterton in once sentence can be described as a larger than life man. Not only large in the physical sense but in a spiritual sense. In the book Chesterton writes, " the back of a great mountain of a man. When Syme had seen him, his first thought was that the weight of him must break down the balcony of stone. His vastness did not lie only in the fact that he was abnormally tall and quite incredibly fat. This man was planned enormously in his original proportions, like a statue carved deliberately as colossal. His head, crowned with white hair, as seen from behind looked bigger than a head ought to be. The ears that stood out from it looked larger than human ears. He was enlarged terribly to scale; and this sense of size was so staggering, that when Syme saw him all the other figures seemed quite suddenly to dwindle and become dwarfish.". (Chesterton, 1937) The way Chesterton describes Sunday is obviously very huge. He compared him to a colossal statue. You can say that Sunday seems very monumental. Chesterton also says this about Sunday "He might have been called something above man, with his large plans, which were too obvious to be detected" (Chesterton, 1937). He is not only described as physically larger then man but his plans also are conceived to be larger than man can perceive. Chesterton describes Sunday in great details, but he also portrays Sunday to be other than man. Sunday has spiritual implications. In the story Sunday is over time played out to basically be the peace of god. He is order and chaos. Sunday is the creator of the "world". In the book, Chesterton has Sunday say, "I am the Sabbath,... I am the peace of god." (Chesterton, 1937) Chesterton comes out and says that Sunday is the Sabbath and the peace of god. Sunday says to the Men of the days of the week that, "...they would understand him when they had understood the stars." (Chesterton, 1937) He is saying that he is a higher being and that they can not understand what he is unless they open there minds and think outside the box. Chesterton writes that, "He is perhaps fire hundred miles off, but the fear of him is on all of them, like the finder of god. ". (Chesterton, 1937) By "he" Chesterton means Sunday, and Sunday is chasing the men down. No matter how far the 6 men run, Sunday is always watching and they can feel his presents. In the text Gregory says to Syme, "'We generally call him Sunday,' replied Gregory with simplicity. 'You see there are seven members of the central anarchist Council, and they are named after the days of the week.'" (Chesterton, 1937) Sunday created this anarchy group and named the head members the rest of the days of the week. Like God created the days. The men all represent what god did on the 6 days of creation. In the end of the book he has the 6 men dress as what was created on the day that they represent. If Sunday created the men who were days of the week, that leads us to believe that Sunday is god. So, if Sunday is the Sabbath, and he created the days of the week. Then Sunday must obviously be god. Sunday puts these characters through tests and tries to break them. He pushes these men to see if they would stray against him. Sunday is the shadow and the light. Chesterton writes early in the book, "The speech was broken off short under a vast shadow. President Sunday had risen to his feet, seeming to fill the sky above them." (Chesterton, 1937) Chesterton adds little hints of Sunday being God all throughout the book. We think of God in the heavens, and the heavens above us. So when he is filling the sky above them, it is him saying he is God above. Chesterton has Sunday say, "'You can't get hold of it yet, Gogol,' He said in a fatherly way." (Chesterton, 1937) Also Chesterton writes "I knew that he was only like a father playing hide-and-seek with his children." (Chesterton, 1937) Who is our Father up above? It is God. God is the father and Chesterton has Sunday talk in a Fatherly way and have the 6 men chase him like a son chases their father. Sunday says to the 6 men, "But you were men. You did not forget your secret honor, though the whole cosmos turned an engine of torture to tear it out of you. I knew how near you were to hell. I know how you, Thursday, crossed swords with king Satan, and how you, Wednesday, named me in the hour without hope." (Chesterton, 1937) This story, this quote, and what has happened to Thursday can be compared to that of the book of job. Sunday or God, is putting Thursday or Man through tests of torture to test his faith. Although Sunday put them through the ringer, the men stayed true to their words and kept the promise of not to tell about the secret anarchy society. The men came very close at times but still never did tell. Sunday also tells the men, "You heard the voice in the dark, and you never heard it again. The sun in heaven denied it, the earth and sky denied it, all human wisdom denied it. and when I met you in the daylight I denied it myself." (Chesterton, 1937) With this quote from the book, Sunday is saying that in the dark you listened to me and never heard from me again. They listened to the nameless faceless man and did not doubt him. Sunday was the darkness. Even in the light they did not know this man, Sunday was the man in the dark, they listened to him anyway. Sundays symbolism is very amass in this story. When you sit back after you read the book it all seems to make complete sense. Who is Sunday? Well Sunday is God. Sunday led them to the goal and then tried to lead them astray. The 6 men of the days of the week never faltered. Just as Job never faltered when God tested his faith. The symbolism in The Man Who Was Thursday is abundant. The way Chesterton decoded Sunday was very clever. Sunday was the Sabbath, he was the word of God, he was God. Chesterton's spiritual implications of Sunday as God was thrown in throughout the book develops a hit as to who Sunday is.

Bibliography
Chesterton, G. (1937). The Man Who Was Thursday. New York: Penguin Books Ltd.