Final Exam Essay

Each of the three novels we read during our Canadian literature section of the class presents a question dealing with the Mennonite Community or faith. The main conflict of the story stems from the main character’s struggle with the question. Sandra Birdsell’s Katya raises the question of self defense. The question is posed when the people come to hurt her family and the Sudermanns: If someone is trying to kill you and your family, is it okay to fight back to save your life? Miriam Teows’ A Complicated Kindness presents the problem of being enslaved by the tight rules of the Church and the question of when is the Church wrong? When does it turn into manipulation of the truth? What do you do? Do you follow the rules or do you stand up to the Church and demand reform? The central question posed in Rudy Wiebe’s Peace Shall Destroy Many is about nonresistance. Is it okay to sit back while others are fighting and dying for your freedom?
We see the most blunt presentation of this question in Peace Shall Destroy Many on page 105 when Annamarie repeats Cornie’s words to her in his letter: "But the worst is the way some of the men, our people often too, don't understand or care what is really going on outside in the world. They're happy that their own conscience is satisfied- they care for no more...Am I to be concerned only with the final redemption of my own soul? Have we progressed so far as to call that Christ's teaching? Or do I do something for my neighbour also? Sometimes I think that planting trees is not enough of an answer to that question." Unhopeful, Thom points out, "what else can Christians do...? Surely not join in the killing" to which Annamarie replies “Of course not… but sometimes our refusal to have anything to do with the War means only, ‘Well, I’m doing the right thing and am bound for heaven- let the rest of the world go to hell as it wishes’” (105). And so the question is left unanswered as Thom struggles to understand the world around him.
The reader is not presented with a concrete answer at the end of the novel. Rather, he or she is presented with the final scene and made to interpret the answer to the question based on that. But the final scene is a surprise, not only Thom, but also the Deacon’s son, Pete, turn to violence. The crowd of people stand amazed and Deacon Block runs off in tears. The scene ends with Thom’s family riding home in silence. Did Thom let his temper get the best of him in a moment of weakness? He punched Herb when Herb was going to attack Pete. And Pete had punched Herb because he thought Herb was violating Razia. Pete tells his father “Pa, you have to do what you think right” (286). We are left with the conclusion that violence is okay when it is used to protect others.
Both Katya and Peace Shall Destroy Many address exceptions to the rule of nonviolence but give different answers; the actions of Katya’s father suggest that violence should never be used, even for self defense while Thom and Pete suggest that violence is okay if it is used to protect others. A Complicated Kindness asks what should be done in the face of stifling and manipulative church rules. All three novels seem to address through their questions that perhaps the Church is not always right and that Christians should not follow their church leaders mindlessly but think for themselves and decide what they believe personally.