The Cone Gatherers

Notes by Ian Yule

Macrocosm – The Big Picture

1939 – 1945 World War 2 Britain is at war with the evil dictator,

Adolf Hitler There are rumours of millions of people

(especially Jews, gypsies and the disabled) dieing in concentration camps

(The Holocaust)

Microcosm – the small picture

The story is set in Ardmore, a privately owned estate (The Runcie-Campbells) in North West of Scotland.

In this small place battles will also take place – class, good and evil, and psychological (internal conflict).

Maps

Ardmore

Publication 1955

The book was published shortly after World War 2 and Jenkins sought to address in story form two pressing questions of the time:

What kind of evil was there in human beings which had got out of control and had led to WW2 and its aftermath?

Where, if anywhere, was there hope for the future?

Religious Imagery

It is arguable that TCG is an allegory – that is a story with a second level of meaning.

To understand that second level of meaning we have to understand some Christian ideas from the Bible.

Robin Jenkins was a committed Christian and his audience (when his book was published in 1955) would have known a lot of Christian ideas not so well known today.

Christian Imagery

In the beginning Man and God lived in perfect harmony in the Garden of Eden.

Hint – look out for a perfect setting in ‘The Cone Gatherers’

In this Garden there was an evil presence (a snake, Satan, Devil)

Hint – look out for an evil character in ‘The Cone Gatherers’

The snake persuaded man to disobey God and sin (the capacity to do evil) entered our perfect world. Therefore man deserved to die.

Hint – look out for an evil character persuading others to do things which will cause trouble in ‘The Cone Gatherers’.

God’s problem was how do I fix this?

Man

God

Hint - look out for ‘broken’ relationships in ‘The Cone Gatherers’

God sent his own son (Jesus) to fix it (a 100% innocent person).

Hint – look out for an ‘innocent’ character in ‘The Cone Gatherers’.

St Francis of Assisi

“Chaffinches fluttered around him”

Jesus died on the cross (crucifixion) for our sins bringing back peace between man and God.

Hint – look out for a horrendous bloody death in ‘The Cone Gatherers’.