Parker's Back

“Parker’s vision was so blurred that for an instant he thought he had been attacked by some creature from above, a giant hawk-eyed angel wielding a hoary weapon.”

When Parker first meets Sarah Ruth, he sees a frightening vision of an angel instead of a woman. This is an allusion to the divine at work in Parker’s life. Even though he is not physically attracted to Sarah Ruth and does not understand why he kept returning to her, his initial vision of her as an angel reveals that she is a tool of the divine, leading him toward the transformation of his soul.

“The man, who was small and sturdy, moved about on the platform, flexing his muscles so that the arabesque of men and beasts and flowers on his skin appeared to have a subtle motion of its own. Parker was filled with emotion, lifted up as some people are when the flag passes.”

Parker is compelled by the tattooed man and experiences an awakening of emotion that was unknown beforehand. This stirring of emotion is his first connection to a spiritual realm, though he initially mistakes it for a desire to physically imitate the tattooed man. The comparison of the emotion to patriotism implies that an idealistic, spiritual side has been awakened.

“Parker had never before felt the least motion of wonder in himself. Until he saw the man at the fair, it did not enter his head that there was anything out of the ordinary about the fact that he existed.”

Parker is characterized as someone who is primarily focused on the physical aspects of his life. Even the miraculous nature of existence and consciousness doesn’t seem unusual to him until his soul is awakened by witnessing the intricately tattooed man.

“Whenever a decent-sized mirror was available, he would get in front of it and study his overall look. The effect was not of one intricate arabesque of colors but of something haphazard and botched.”

The dissatisfaction that Parker experiences after he gets a new tattoo reveals that he is attempting to satisfy a spiritual urge with a physical action. Because the spiritual desire cannot be physically met, each attempt leaves him frustrated.

“His dissatisfaction, from being chronic and latent, had suddenly become acute and raged in him. It was as if the panther and the lion and the serpents and the eagles and the hawks had penetrated his skin and lived inside him in a raging warfare.”

The intricate design of the tattooed man appeared to Parker to be something whole and unified. When Parker tries to imitate the designs, he feels they are discordant. Because he has not embraced his role in the divine, he is separate from God and the oneness of all things and experiences discord within himself.

“The view from the porch stretched off across a long incline studded with iron weed and across the highway to a vast vista of hills and one small mountain. Long views depressed Parker. You look out into space like that and you begin to feel as if someone were after you, the navy or the government or religion.”

Although Parker fled his mother’s attempts to convert him by joining the navy, he finds no satisfaction in that role and goes AWOL leading to a dishonorable discharge. He groups all forms of higher power together in one negative association, feeling that like the navy, religion will take away his freedom.

“He had never revealed the name to any man or woman, only to the files of the navy and the government, and it was on his baptismal record which he got at the age of a month; his mother was a Methodist. When the name leaked out of the navy files, Parker narrowly missed killing the man who used it.”

Parker’s first name, Obadiah, means servant of God. Parker’s refusal to use the name, and anger at anyone else who uses it, symbolizes his refusal to participate in his divine purpose and calling.

“The first thing Parker saw were his shoes, quickly being eaten by the fire; one was caught under the tractor, the other was some distance away, burning by itself. He was not in them. He could feel the hot breath of the burning tree on his face. He scrambled backwards, still sitting, his eyes cavernous, and if he had known how to cross himself he would have done it.”

The burning tree is an allusion to the burning bush where Moses encountered God. Just as in the story with Moses, Parker’s shoes are removed during the encounter to indicate he is in the presence of the divine. Parker shows recognition of this fact by noting that he would have crossed himself if he’d known how.

“Parker did not allow himself to think on the way to the city. He only knew that there had been a great change in his life, a leap forward into a worse unknown, and that there was nothing he could do about it. It was for all intents accomplished.”

Parker’s resignation to the inexplicable trajectory of his life shows that, although he is exercising his free will, there are forces at work that are beyond him. “It was for all intents accomplished” is perhaps an allusion to Christ’s final words on the cross: It is finished.

“On one of the pages a pair of eyes glanced at him swiftly. Parker sped on, then stopped. His heart too appeared to cut off; there was absolute silence. It said as plainly as if silence were a language itself, Go back.”

Although he is getting another tattoo, which seems to follow the typical pattern he has set for himself, Parker feels a divine intervention when he sees the Byzantine Christ. The design is part of the divine plan for his life, so he feels compelled to return to it.

“All night he lay awake in the long dormitory of cots with lumpy figures on them. The only light was from a phosphorescent cross glowing at the end of the room. The tree reached out to grasp him again, then burst into flame; the shoe burned quietly by itself; the eyes in the book said to him distinctly Go back and at the same time did not utter a sound.”

The visions of the burning tree and the Byzantine Christ show that God is pursuing Parker. Even though he is still acting and behaving in his usual ways, the divine haunts him throughout.

“Parker lunged into the midst of them and like a whirlwind on a summer’s day there began a fight that raged amid overturned tables and swinging fists until two of them grabbed him and ran to the door with him and threw him out. Then a calm descended on the pool hall as nerve shattering as if the long barnlike room were the ship from which Jonah had been cast into the sea.”

Jonah is a biblical prophet who brings chaos and storms to a ship when he runs from God’s calling. The allusion to Jonah shows that, similarly, Parker is also running from God’s calling.

“Parker bent down and put his mouth near the stuffed keyhole. “Obadiah,” he whispered and all at once he felt the light pouring through him, turning his spider-web soul into a perfect arabesque of colors, a garden of trees and birds and beasts.”

When Parker finally says his name aloud, his soul undergoes a great transformation. The physical designs of unity and harmony that he has been trying to create on his body finally enter his soul and enfold him in the divine.