Rev. Robert Boughton Character Analysis in Gilead

Boughton is Gilead’s retired Presbyterian minister, a widower, and John’s lifelong best friend. John’s main confidant throughout his life, Boughton came over regularly during John’s solitary years so that they could work on their sermons together. Though he is younger than John, he suffers from terrible arthritis and rarely leaves home. His daughter Glory lives with him. Because Boughton has aged so much, John most often describes him in retrospect—in his younger days, he was a strong man and a gifted preacher. Nowadays he’s severely stooped and sometimes cranky from the discomfort; his biggest enjoyment is his children (he has four daughters and four sons), especially his beloved son Jack. John sometimes envied Boughton’s lively family life, and knowing that John might never have children, Boughton named Jack after John and intended for them to have a special relationship. However, Jack has mostly caused his father heartache and disgrace over the years. After Jack fathered a child in college, Boughton and his wife, in anguish, often visited the baby and her mother and offered support, but nothing seemed to help. Decades later, Jack returns to Gilead intending to tell his father about his marriage to Della and their son, but when he sees how frail his father has become, he changes his mind and confides in John instead.

Rev. Robert Boughton Quotes in Gilead

The Gilead quotes below are all either spoken by Rev. Robert Boughton or refer to Rev. Robert Boughton. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

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And old Boughton, if he could stand up out of his chair, out of his decrepitude and crankiness and sorrow and limitation, would abandon all those handsome children of his, mild and confident as they are, and follow after that one son whom he has never known, whom he has favored as one does a wound, and he would protect him as a father cannot, defend him with a strength he does not have, sustain him with a bounty beyond any resource he could ever dream of having. If Boughton could be himself, he would utterly pardon every transgression, past, present, and to come, whether or not it was a transgression in fact or his to pardon. He would be that extravagant. That is a thing I would love to see.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Son (The Boy), Jack (John Ames) Boughton, Rev. Robert Boughton

Page Number and Citation: 238

Explanation and Analysis:

As I have told you, I myself was the good son, so to speak, the one who never left his father’s house—even when his father did, a fact which surely puts my credentials beyond all challenge. I am one of those righteous for whom the rejoicing in heaven will be comparatively restrained. And that’s all right. There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Son (The Boy), John’s Father, Jack (John Ames) Boughton, Rev. Robert Boughton

Page Number and Citation: 238

Explanation and Analysis:

Rev. Robert Boughton Quotes in Gilead

The Gilead quotes below are all either spoken by Rev. Robert Boughton or refer to Rev. Robert Boughton. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

).

And old Boughton, if he could stand up out of his chair, out of his decrepitude and crankiness and sorrow and limitation, would abandon all those handsome children of his, mild and confident as they are, and follow after that one son whom he has never known, whom he has favored as one does a wound, and he would protect him as a father cannot, defend him with a strength he does not have, sustain him with a bounty beyond any resource he could ever dream of having. If Boughton could be himself, he would utterly pardon every transgression, past, present, and to come, whether or not it was a transgression in fact or his to pardon. He would be that extravagant. That is a thing I would love to see.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Son (The Boy), Jack (John Ames) Boughton, Rev. Robert Boughton

Page Number and Citation: 238

Explanation and Analysis:

As I have told you, I myself was the good son, so to speak, the one who never left his father’s house—even when his father did, a fact which surely puts my credentials beyond all challenge. I am one of those righteous for whom the rejoicing in heaven will be comparatively restrained. And that’s all right. There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Son (The Boy), John’s Father, Jack (John Ames) Boughton, Rev. Robert Boughton

Page Number and Citation: 238

Explanation and Analysis: