41 pages • 1 hour read
Walter M. Miller Jr.A Canticle For Leibowitz
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1959A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Francis Gerard
When the novel begins, Francis is a 17-year-old novice at the Albertian abbey. He is devoted to his vocation but finds his vigil in the desert dreary. His encounter with the wandering old man leads to various expressions of his curious temperament and intolerance for pressure. He finds himself at the center of a controversy for which he is unprepared.
Francis is long-suffering and dutiful, as befits his station as a novice for an abbey. He also represents curiosity and an appreciation for artistic endeavors, as he shows during his investigation of the fallout shelter and his dedication to the lambskin illumination and the blueprints of Leibowitz. As the one who brings the story about the old wanderer into the abbey, Francis also symbolizes the ease with which stories can mutate into grander, uncontrollable narratives.
Thon Taddeo Pfarentrott
Taddeo is a renowned young scholar with a brilliant mind and a secular outlook. His name is already mentioned in the same breath as other revered academics and theologians. Taddeo is legitimately curious and devoted to scientific progress, but he is also prideful and ambitious. He is professionally frustrated when he witnesses the success of the dynamo since he will not be the one to discover it. He is surprised to find that Kornhoer and other monks are driven not only to preserve the scientific texts, but also to explore them and, in Kornhoer’s case, to expand on them.
Taddeo’s internal tension arises from the fact that he finds himself in an age of ignorance but is also one of the few people aware of the formidable intellectual achievements of his predecessors in the prior centuries.
The Old Wanderer
The old wanderer first appears in the novel during Francis’s vigil. He reveals the fallout shelter to the novice and then leaves. Francis’s story about the old man gives rise to the rumor that the wanderer is actually Isaac Leibowitz, or at least, his spirit. He appears in Part 2 as the “Old Jew” and Benjamin Eleazar in Part 3, claiming that he has been alive for millennia.
The wanderer appears in all three parts at significant moments, but there is no clear sign that he is actually Leibowitz. He symbolizes the uncertainty of legends and the doubt that must be applied to history. The reader cannot be sure of the old man’s identity any more than Francis.
Abbot Zerchi
Zerchi is the abbot during Part 3 of the book. He embodies the religious argument that everything is part of God’s plan, including the ghastliest mortal suffering. Zerchi believes that endurance in the face of suffering is the highest ideal humans can embrace, as he shows with his opposition to the Mercy Camps of Doctor Cors. He remains stoic in the face of unimaginable suffering, trusting that it is all God’s will.
Zerchi is consistent in his beliefs, even when facing his death. After a nuclear blast, he is trapped in and beneath the wreckage of his building. He accepts his suffering and death, looking forward to his reward in heaven.
Dom Paulo
Paulo is the abbot during Part 2. He represents the end of the new Dark Age. Paulo encourages and embodies the sharing of information for the potential improvement of society. He is the head of a religious order during a time when secular scholars like Taddeo are regaining traction in society.
Paulo suffers from a hemorrhagic condition that will kill him but keeps his illness a secret from the other monks. He knows that the rumor of his coming death will lead to political maneuvering from those who might benefit from it or wish to take his position.
