Vice and Virtue Theme Analysis

The characters in Lincoln in the Bardo exemplify the fact that humans are made up of contradictions. The Reverend Everly Thomas perhaps represents this best, since he has dedicated his entire life on earth to following God, and yet he discovers upon his final judgment that he has somehow not earned a place in heaven. When he flees—making haste back to the Bardo to avoid damnation—he tries to discern what, exactly, he did to deserve such treatment. Racking his brain, he finds himself unable to pinpoint the vice that cost him admission to heaven. In doing so, however, he does succeed in recognizing a number of flaws in himself. Similarly, when President Lincoln considers whether or not to forge ahead with the Civil War, he realizes that his decision to embark upon such a bloody battle encompasses both a virtuous concern for humankind (namely, the belief that slavery should be abolished) and a morally troubling resolution that those who support slavery must surrender or die. Through these two characters, then, Saunders suggests that humans are complex beings capable of embodying both virtue and vice. At the same time, though, the Reverend and Lincoln both examine their own shortcomings instead of ignoring them, which Saunders suggests makes them virtuous characters despite their moral failures.

When the Reverend Everly Thomas dies after a lifetime of priesthood, he arrives at a large diamond door, where he receives judgment from a “Christ-emissary.” Much to his dismay, this judgment is quite damning, and just before the doors of hell open for him, he turns and runs away, eventually reaching the Bardo. As he flees, a being whispers in his ear that he mustn’t tell anybody what he’s seen, or else his judgment will be even harsher upon his return—a statement implying that his return is inevitable. Determined to wait for eternity in the Bardo, the Reverend desperately tries to piece together why he’s been damned, reflecting “I did not kill, steal, abuse, deceive; was not an adulterer, always tried to be charitable and just […]. And yet was damned. Was it my (occasional) period of doubt? Was it that I sometimes lusted? Was it my pride, when I had resisted my lust? […] Was it some sin so far beyond my ability to comprehend it that even now I remain unaware of it, ready to commit it again?” He concludes that he can’t know. The Reverend’s utter confusion underlines the fact that humans aren’t always capable of articulating their own vices. At the same time, it’s worth noting that the Reverend doesn’t simply push the matter from his mind and assume that the Christ-emissary has made a mistake. Instead, he examines his various shortcomings, admitting to himself that he has not led a perfect life despite the fact that he always tried to remain pious. This, Saunders insinuates, is all there is to do, since vice is seemingly unavoidable—after all, if even a well-behaved, lifelong reverend has earned damnation, it stands to reason that most people have serious vices of their own as well. Rather than providing a singular reason why the Reverend doesn’t make it into heaven, Saunders lets the ambiguity sit with readers, thereby emulating the complex way virtue and vice coexist within a single person.

Like the Reverend, President Lincoln can’t deny his own failures, shortcomings, and immoral actions. His sins, though, are more tangible. Indeed, as he grieves over the loss of his son, he can’t deny the fact that he—as the leader of the Union during the Civil War—has caused many people to die. “He is just one,” he thinks, referring to Willie. “And the weight of it about to kill me. Have exported this grief. Some three thousand times. So far. To date. A mountain. Of boys. Someone’s boys.” In this moment, Lincoln can’t avoid the truth, which is that he is responsible for more than three thousand deaths—a fact that is hardly virtuous. However, he also knows that there’s a reason why he’s fighting this war: after all, if the Union doesn’t stop the South from seceding, then slavery will continue, thereby elongating a humanitarian crisis of genocidal proportions. Because of this, Lincoln’s otherwise indefensible support of violence and murder takes on a righteous quality. In turn, Lincoln himself comes to represent a clash of vice and virtue, a dynamic he recognizes while mourning Willie’s death. As he thinks about the grief he feels, he realizes that he has brought this same hardship upon many parents, but he also remembers that he’s doing so for an admirable reason. “Did the thing merit it,” he asks himself. “Merit the killing. On the surface it was a technicality (mere Union) but seen deeper, it was something more. How should men live? How could men live?” Asking himself this question, President Lincoln determines that he must “not be ruined” by his grief and indecision and feelings of guilt. Rather, he “must go on” with the bloody Civil War, since so many people have already died for the cause. By examining and weighing the vices and virtues related to his decisions, then, Lincoln finds a way to move forward with the war more surefootedly than before, suggesting that the best way to handle one’s own vices is to acknowledge them and act with an awareness that they are there.

In keeping with Saunders’s suggestion that people should examine their vices, the only souls in Lincoln in the Bardo who are portrayed as decidedly evil are the hell-beings who refuse to examine their sins. Indeed, the Reverend encounters this moral apathy when he listens to these condemned beings, who are physically embedded in the tendrils that wrap around Willie Lincoln, binding him to the Bardo and robbing him of his youthful “light.” These souls explain that they’re in hell, but they reject the idea that they deserve their punishment. For example, one of them—who’s in hell for killing her husband—says, “Was I born with just those predispositions and desires that would lead me, after my whole preceding life (during which I had killed exactly no one), to do just that thing? I was. Was that my doing? Was that fair? Did I ask to be born licentious, greedy, slightly misanthropic, and to find [my husband] so irritating? I did not. But there I was.” After she says this, her fellow hell-dwellers agree that they’ve all been “predisposed” toward evil, ultimately attempting to downplay their own agency and, thus, their culpability for whatever heinous things they have done. As they do so, readers see that the behavior of these souls stands in stark contrast to Lincoln and the Reverend, who periodically probe their own characters to uncover their vices and consider the ways they’ve failed to be virtuous.

As the Reverend hears these condemned souls blame their vices on their “predispositions,” he finds himself disgusted by their refusal to take responsibility for their own actions. “To be grouped with these, accepting one’s sins so passively, even proudly, with no trace of repentance?” he laments. “I could not bear it.” Humans, he seems to understand in this moment, are full of contradictions: good and bad, virtue and vice, morality and immorality. To consider “one’s sins so passively” without taking any responsibility for them is, in his eyes, the ultimate failure. Though he himself has perhaps failed to lead a fully virtuous life, he acknowledges and repents of his sins. Finally, then, he decides to own up to whatever judgment awaits him, for at least this means he won’t be like the hell-dwellers. He scoops up Willie Lincoln and dashes away from the evil tendrils. When the tendrils catch up to him and wrap around his body—securing him to the earth—he decides to move on from the Bardo to return to the gate of his final judgment, knowing that when he does this a “matterlightblooming” ray will shoot down and take him away and, in the process, momentarily eviscerate the tendril. His courage and resolve in this moment clearly stems from his own refusal to be like the hell-dwellers, who deny the depravity of their sins. Unlike them, he acknowledges that he’s comprised of both virtue and vice, and this consideration leads him to action. In the same way that President Lincoln’s internal debate regarding the morality of his wartime actions enables him to proceed with the Civil War with a clear resolve, the Reverend’s soul-searching regarding his own sins ultimately inspires him to move on with a new sense of resolution. In turn, Saunders implies that acting morally sometimes means embracing the fact that humans contain both virtue and vice—and that perhaps the greatest vice is the inability to acknowledge one’s own flaws, while repenting may even bring redemption.