The Devil and Miss Prym
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Devil and Miss Prym (Template:Lang-pt) is a novel by the Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho.
The book tries to find an answer to a question that arises in the human mind at times of distress, rejection or betrayal. Put simply, the question is "Are people bad?".
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Plot summary
For almost fifteen years, old Berta had spent everyday sitting outside her front door, watching over the little, idyllic village Viscos, occasionally talking with her deceased husband. She is waiting for the devil to come, as her husband has predicted to her. Then one day actually a stranger appeared with the intention of staying one week in the village.
Somewhere in the wood he buries a treasure – 11 bars of gold. On the way back he meets Chantal Prym, a young and rather beautiful barmaid, who is bored of the idyllic scenery and slow pace of life. Regularly she takes a fancy to passing tourists and easily seduces them to her bed in the hope that one of them, just one of them will prove to be her escape route. Miss Prym has edges, she's not wholly likeable, but the reader can also understand some of her frustrations. However the stranger shows her the buried treasure and promises that it will belong to the villagers if they agree to kill someone before the week is over.
From this moment on, there is a ferocious battle within the young woman; a battle between her angel and her devil. She sees in the gold the ticket to finally escape this hell, which is a paradise to others. Still, something holds her back.
After some days of hard thinking, she decides to tell her fellow men what the stranger has proposed, trusting that they will refuse. The people’s reaction to her the next day, however, plants the seed of doubt inside of Chantal. Now she fears for her own precious life. As an act of desperation, she plans to abandon Viscos with one of the stranger’s bars. Destiny though seems to have other plans with her, and therefore sends a rogue wolf, which threatens Chantal’s life. Luckily the stranger arrives, and both manage to escape. There they have a meaningful discussion which is able to keep his devil at bay for a while.
Meanwhile the villagers assemble in the church to choose their victim, in order to get the promised bounty. Their selected scapegoat was old Berta, for she was already old and life had to be a burden for her, after all her husband died of a hunting accident long ago.
Shortly before the villagers execute the poor old lady, Chantal makes a stand and persuades the inhabitants of Viscos what a great stupidity they are about to make. She proves them wrong about all their foolish dreams about the gold and convinces them that under no circumstances murder is justified. This way she gave the stranger the answer to his question, as well. Every human being embodies some evil and some good; our conduct is a matter of control and choice.
Characters
The stranger
A man persecuted by the ghosts of his painful past comes to Viscos desperately searching for answers. Once he had been a good man when at a whim of destiny his life was torn apart. His family had been kidnapped by a group of terrorists who threatened to kill them unless he agreed to hand over a huge amount of weapons. He however made the mistake to call in the police and thus sacrificing what he held near and dear. The loss of his family held a pain seemingly unbearable and at the moment in which the aching was the strongest he became accompanied by the devil. There was a burning desire within him to take vengeance for the injustice that has befallen him and since the terrorists have already died - his object was now in his eyes the evil humanity.
Chantal Prym
Somehow the stranger had in some way a good impact on her, too. He forced her to act, to stop complaining about everything and to actually take a stand. She started as a frustrated girl who sometimes even seduced the hotel guests so one of them possibly would take her with him and thus free her from the hell called Viscos. After she heard the stranger’s offer, she seemed to drown in her self-pity, doubts, and fears but then she suddenly began to fight and exactly this attitude of hers prevented the villagers of making the biggest mistake of their life – to take away the life of an innocent old woman just for their selfish motives.
Old Berta
The widow passed her days with watching the village and the nature surrounding it. Often enough she had a little chat with her already deceased husband. She had the ability to see ghosts, the peoples’ emotions, devils, and angels as well, which was the reason for the villagers calling her a witch. Berta can also read signs of nature so she took the hint when there was a storm approaching the moment the stranger arrived in the village. The inhabitants of Viscos decided her to die as a sacrifice for the welfare of the village and agreed to pay her back with building a fountain. Even when she didn’t have to die she got her fountain.
Major themes
The book is deep in meaning; It teaches one to believe in nature but also makes one responsible for actions happening around them.
1) Fear 2) Temptation 3) Good & Evil
