The Spike with No Point: A Close Reading of 'The Ball and the Cross' Trey Dusseault College

The Ball and the Cross by G.K. Chesterton is a wonderful, fantastical story depicting the struggle between the ideals of the secular world and religion. Its protagonists are an ardent Catholic, Evan MacIan, and an ardent atheist, James Turnbull, both hell-bent on being the more zealous of the two in the name of their respective ideologies. The antagonist of the story is the world, or secular society, whose mediocrity and lack of avidity are what the protagonists are fighting against. This theme of zeal versus apathy can be seen in the instance of the spike. While incarcerated in a special prison for the particularly insane, MacIan and Turnbull both express their deep hatred for a certain spike protruding from the wall. This spike has no purpose to the function of the prison cell; it simply is. Their views toward the seeming pointlessness of the spike illustrate that MacIan and Turnbull are, in fact, succumbing to the ways of the world. Their views are checked, however, when they discover the occupant of the neighboring cell, the innocently old yet child-like Michael, a character introduced at the beginning of the tale. Michael’s ideas concerning the spike oppose their’s completely, and give insight into Chesterton’s reflection...