Abstract
Few passages of Scripture are more revered than the parable of the prodigal son. Whether through quotidian biblical readings or fiery Sunday morning sermons, the evocative images that it conjures up—the most prominent of which is that of a forlorn son returning home to a beneficent father—often causes those who encounter this story of redemption, believer and non-believer alike, to be enraptured in the ardor of spiritual ecstasy. It is a quintessential feel-good story. And yet, one must ask, how many prodigal sons are able to return to their fathers’ houses in like manner? Is it not troubling to consider the lack of such a welcome home for the countless prodigal sons among us? This interdisciplinary study examines such questions by underscoring not only the failed “return,” but, even more so, the lack of a “home” (a veritable place of return, so to speak) for black men who suffer from the inherent prodigality, the desire to spend all, of patriarchal manhood. It is for this reason that anatomizing the parable itself, which is done by utilizing the works of such scholars as Henri Nouwen, is not sufficient to address our concerns. Other interlocutors are needed, scholars of a different but not better perspicacity, who can speak to the deleterious intergenerational effects that a lack of home can have on a black man’s development, be it psychosocially, spiritually, or otherwise. The chosen participants for this somewhat uncommon dialogue are psychoanalyst John Bowlby and African American author Ernest Gaines. Both of these authors enunciate the ways in which the inability to return or, in some instances, retreat to what Bowlby calls a “secure base” traps a man within a deadly web of negative affect, such as shame, within which he entangles his sons as well. This is an unfortunate act of filicide.
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Hinds, JP. Shame and Its Sons: Black Men, Fatherhood, and Filicide. Pastoral Psychol 63, 641–658 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-014-0601-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-014-0601-9