Themes

Love — both human and divine — is a constant theme in Percy's novels, but in The Second Coming, Percy provides his most thorough analysis of love and marriage as a way through the alienation of the fallen world. Will Barrett, the central character, consciously (and comically) searches for God, or at least a sign of God, in this novel, but, instead of finding Him, he literally "falls" into love with a woman named Allison. Will and Allison are both alienated, which is to say "fallen" human beings, but by coming together they find a way back to their true selves and each other: "She was moving against him, enclosing him, wrapping her arms and legs around him, as if her body had at last found the center of itself outside itself." Their love is described in allegorical language that recalls both the Christian doctrine of the Fall...