Deacon: The Ultimate Sinner

In my current list about characters who transform, I define "transformation" by discussing who I don't include. 

The character here--Deacon from Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers--is a great example of character who never transforms...except for the bad.  

Nine Tailors is often considered to be Sayers's best mystery. It has a complicated enough plot that even if one knows some of the background, the mystery (What happened to Deacon? Who exactly did the burying of the body in the graveyard?) remains. Moreover, the plot, though complicated, does not rely on implausible time tables (Sayers did a time table mystery with Red Herrings). 

Best of all, the characters are clear and consistent. 

Deacon is one of Sayers's most vile villains, but he isn't serial-killer vile. Rather, he is like someone who belongs in Dante's Inferno, a work that Sayers would translate in the 1940s. 

Deacon's sins not only lead to him hurting others. He ends up leading a far more horrible life than he could have led otherwise--and just keeps digging himself in deeper.  

*Spoilers.*  

He engineers the initial theft, then dupes his co-conspirator. He escapes from prison, then kills a soldier and ends up unwittingly on the front. He returns to England much later, then gets recognized. He was going to be returned to France, then ends up in a belfry, where he is killed by the bells. 

That is, like sinners in Dante, Deacon mires himself deeper and deeper in sludge. He is not stupid. He is venial and short-sighted. The short-sightedness is exactly that of a clever man who is always convinced that a better plan is around the corner. He cannot see beyond the sludge. 

Sayers and C.S. Lewis and Dante (and Joseph Smith) resolve the problem of faith and works in a similar way. Grace is freely and constantly offered. Another life, another choice, another direction. The inability to take that grace is directly linked to what the person wants.

None of them argue that bad things don't happen to good people--or, for that matter, that an entirely indifferent awful (a volcano is a fairly indifferent thing) won't happen to good people. Rather, they argue that people create the worlds that they then inhabit. 

In Dante's Inferno, the dead spend more time thinking up excuses and attacking each other (and castigating Virgil and Dante) than in making choices. In fact, in Dante's universe, they can no longer make choices. They have talked themselves into dead ends. They have decided the universe offers nothing but the rage or gluttony or treachery that they have invested themselves in. 

Likewise, Deacon never stops trying to figure out his next "easy" solution. (It reminds me of research that shows that drug dealers actually pay less than minimum wage to their workers.) The "easy" solution for Deacon is an endless round of misery, not just to others but to himself. 

Deacon ends up in a literal corner. And the community, through the bells, takes revenge. 

In the book, the inscription for the main bell reads,

NINE TAYLERS MAKE A MANNE – 

IN CHRIST IS DETH ATT END IN ADAM YAT BEGANNE