Such is My Beloved

Of all the reviews I found, Eric McMillan's article "...Story hides erotic subtext" was the closest to my interpretation of this 1934 novel by Morley Callaghan, as Eric writes:

The plot seems rather predictable. An avid young priest finds himself drawn by pity to help two prostitutes. His motives are honourable, but it soon becomes clear some inner uncertainty is pushing him to the point that the girls' welfare becomes a compulsion with him.

What appears to be missing in all the reviews that identify a simplistic religious allegory (characters symbolizing Jesus, Mary Magdelene, Judas) is the irony that what the priest condemned at the pulpit (i.e. prostitution) is what he eventually condones by virtue of his persistent support of the two prostitutes. The erotic sub-text is evident.

The analogy for me is not the reference to prostitution per se, but rather the irony that whatever one might condemn most emphatically in one's life, is likely the very area where one might experience a situation that can become increasingly grey. A simplistic way of articulating this is that one's morals become subject to 'test,' and we become very aware of the fallacy of clear cut wrongs and rights, and the importance of not being so quick to judge others' behaviours or actions. Or rather, that the wrongs and rights remain clear, but the human struggle underlying a final decision, one decision at a time, can be blurry, living life as a sentient being, not merely as an intellect. Interestingly, the priest's efforts to help the two women eventually were to no avail, and his helping them could have been construed as a futile attempt to purge his Christian guilt, or sublimate his unsatiated desires.

Or, as my intentions and past behaviours were described by a friend who speculates he may also be motivated my the same ideal, a perspective of noblesse oblige, where the disenfranchised hold a particular appeal in order for us to 'help.' One might speculate that the person or persons that are being helped hold an appeal due to their qualities or characteristics that we have ourselves, which we may not acknowledge fully. In Morley Callaghan's "Such is My Beloved," Father Dowling's helping eventually led him to a sanitorium, which ironically prevents him from being of service to anyone else.