49 pages • 1-hour read
Priest
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Symbols & Motifs
St. Margaret’s and the Adult Entertainment Venue
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child sexual abuse, death by suicide, and substance use.
At St. Margaret’s Catholic Church, communion is a central expression of faith, but its value depends entirely on the interior state of the parishioner. It can be a moment of deep unity with God, the Church, and the parish community—hence its name, communion—but it can also be an empty social performance. Millie quotes C. S. Lewis: “[A] cold, self-righteous prig, who goes regularly to church, may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute” (130). The “prig” represents people who mechanically attend church. They might take communion, but they don’t have a deep relationship with God. Their presence is perfunctory. Tyler describes Catholicism as “an active religion […] a religion of doing—rituals, prayers, motions” (147). Communion occurs through movement. Tyler and Poppy create a new form of communion by developing a sexual chemistry that connects them to God. Since St. Margaret’s is the setting of many of their sexual encounters, the church is a symbol of an active, multilayered communion.
The adult entertainment venue produces feelings on par with communion. As an adult entertainer, Poppy played the role of the priest, while the customers were her “flock.” Tyler wants to stir up feelings of spiritual transcendence in his worshipers, and Poppy aimed to evoke a state of sexual excitement that, for her, is transcendent in its own way. In both cases, the feeling of transcendence is both intensely personal and communal. Tyler brings the adult entertainment venue and church together when he compares Poppy to biblical figures like Salome and Esther, who use sexuality as a source of power in a patriarchal context. The connection implies that the club has a holy aspect. God is there, and so is communion.
Britney Spears
Britney Spears first appears as a joke. A priest listening to a pop star goes against expectations, and the incongruity produces humor. When Spears reappears, she becomes a serious symbol. Tyler describes how Spears helped Sean release his anger about Lizzy’s death and abuse. When her music came on in the car during the weekend of her funeral, Sean’s feelings, previously restrained, came out. The scene was violent. Tyler describes the “whole car shaking with his fury and raw grief” (260). Through Spears, Sean found an outlet for his rage.
Since Tyler listens to Spears, she represents catharsis for him, too. Her music helps him deal with Lizzy’s loss, and it makes it feel like he’s still connected to her. Tyler has a violent, Sean-like moment with Spears’s music. Jealous of Poppy and Sterling, Tyler uses Spears to release his dismay. Tyler says, “I changed into my gym shorts, grabbed the half-empty bottle of Scotch and trotted downstairs, where I turned up the Britney as loud as the speakers would go, and brutalized my screaming muscles with more weights, more sit-ups, more squats” (350). The loud music gives Tyler an outlet.
The One True Love
The ideal of “one true love” is a motif that supports the three central themes. The motif buttresses conflicts between sex and Christianity. As a priest, God is supposed to be Tyler’s one true love. The vow of celibacy isn’t arbitrary or punitive. Tyler promises to abstain from sex based on the premise that he’ll channel his desires onto God. However, Poppy redirects Tyler’s needs. Without seeing her, he’s immediately captivated. Tyler says, “[H]er voice made me suddenly feel much more man than priest” (16). The intense attraction indicates that Poppy is Tyler’s soulmate. She overwhelms him with desire because they’re meant to be together. Tyler isn’t sure if he can be with both Poppy and God. Tyler solves the issue by realizing that God is with them when they have sex. Through this epiphany, Tyler combines his two true loves—Poppy and God.
The motif underpins the human need for fulfillment. It advances the trope that there’s someone out there for each person and that this specific person creates fulfillment and a meaningful life. At the same time, Tyler and Poppy complicate the relationship between true love and fulfillment. They don’t make each other complete; the union between them and God is what brings satisfaction. The dynamic indicates that people need more than one true love to feel whole; spirituality must enter the equation, too.
Tyler’s belief in the ideal of one true love aligns with his belief in destiny. He imagines that God has a plan for his life and that his job is to ascertain and follow that plan. The belief that each person is intended to be with a single, specific other person, and that fate will lead them to that person, follows from this larger belief in a divine plan. Tyler’s experiences in the novel teach him that life and love are much messier than he had previously supposed. Tyler and Poppy choose their destiny, rather than waiting for it to be revealed to them. To claim the destiny they have chosen, they do a lot of work and overcome many obstacles. Their trajectory isn’t linear—it includes a separation period of seven months—but in the end, they find a sense of mutual fulfillment indistinguishable from destiny.
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