The Catholic Book Club discussion

4. What was the purpose of the Mabel Brand story arc?

Warning: don't read this comment if you haven't finished the novel. It contains spoilers.
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I think Mabel represents those "elected" who are a long way to have been deceived by the antichrist. But I do not think Mabel is damned because she decides to commit suicide by submitting herself to euthanasia. She has been educated to believe that euthanasia is a correct way of dealing with her own death, so she is not going against her conscience, rather the opposite. She does not want to go on living because she is disgusted with what life has become. I think Benson uses her as a symbol that even in the worst circumstances, some people may be saved.

Manuel wrote: "Warning: don't read this comment if you haven't finished the novel. It contains spoilers.
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I think Mabel represents those "elected" who are a long way..."

I totally agree with my friend Alfonseca for me Mabel Brand this is something typical in the Robert Hugh Benson`s novel novel with simple plot, but very good focused, but with excellent secondary characters. Mabel enter in this category with Bellairs in "Dawn of all", and Catchart in "Necromancers". Mabel is the proof of the failure of Felsenburgh she is the character who look for the truth his final choice is not for losing the hope, she want to discover the truth, and she found it.

I love Mabel! In contrast to her husband, who retains power by sacrificing any sense of individual morality, she listens to her conscience even when it goes against how her "reason" has been taught. She illustrates Augustine's point that every heart hungers for God, and it is clear at the end that she finds Him, to her great surprise.
I wonder why she has no child, if that was deliberate. Would that have changed her final decision?

Sarah wrote: "Mabel is my favorite character. I agree that Mabel attains salvation, because she committed suicide from depression, NOT for any selfish reasons (i.e. to get out of serving a jail sentence for murd..."

It is the best character of the novel. We can join to another Robert Hugh Benson´s female characters as Maggie Deronais in "The necroomancers".

Sarah wrote: "I also noticed that when Mabel did something based on her conscience, Oliver dismissed it because she was a woman and he believed she was intellectually inferior."

I continue not seeing the conversion of Brandt for me he is a puppet of Julian Felsenburgh. I think that Brandt is a briliant allegory of the politician of our age. It is very interesting to compare Oliver Brandt with Lord Iviwood the relativist olitician, who appear in the G.K. Chesterton`s novel "Flying Inn".

Sarah wrote: "I also noticed that when Mabel did something based on her conscience, Oliver dismissed it because she was a woman and he believed she was intellectually inferior."

I'm afraid that was very much a reflection of the times in which Benson lived. Women didn't gain the right to vote until 1918 in the UK and Germany, 1920 in the US and 1944 in France.