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Once a successful traveling salesman, middle-aged Tom Kernan has developed a binge drinking problem in recent years, which has led to a personal and professional decline. At the beginning of the story, Kernan has drunkenly fallen down the staircase in a pub, which symbolizes his more figurative fall from grace. When he returns home in his bloodied state, his wife, Mrs. Kernan, is upset—the Kernans don’t have a particularly happy marriage, especially in light of Kernan’s self-destructive habits. A couple of days later, Kernan’s close friends—Jack Power, Martin Cunningham, and Mr. M’Coy—decide to intervene. Together, they conspire to take Kernan (who was raised Protestant and only begrudgingly became a nominal Catholic when he married his wife) to a Catholic retreat. They hope that this will help him become more devout and inspire him to reform his behavior. As his friends discuss the particulars of the Catholic Church and the divisions between Catholicism and Protestantism (though they get many details wrong), Kernan becomes more open-minded about religion. However, he almost refuses to participate in the retreat because he’s so put off by the ritualistic nature of Catholicism—but he ultimately agrees to go. At the retreat, he listens to Father Purdon preach from raised pulpit—a position that’s both literally and symbolically elevated compared to Kernan’s fall to the bottom of the stairs—which implies that religion could indeed offer Kernan the salvation he’s looking for. But Father Purdon’s sermon turns out to be lackluster and businesslike, and the story ends before the reader knows what effect it has on Kernan. In the end, then, Kernan’s character represents the idea that self-improvement is always possible if one is open to it—but his mixed feelings about religion (combined with Purdon’s disappointing sermon) hints that Catholicism may not be the only path to redemption.
Tom Kernan Quotes in Grace
The Grace quotes below are all either spoken by Tom Kernan or refer to Tom Kernan. 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:
).
Grace
Quotes
Two gentleman who were in the lavatory at the time tried to lift him up: but he was quite helpless. He lay curled up at the foot of the stairs down which he had fallen…. His hat had rolled a few yards away and his clothes were smeared with the filth and ooze of the floor on which he had lain, face downwards.
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Mr Power, a much younger man, was employed in the Royal Irish Constabulary Office in Dublin Castle. The arc of his social rise intersected the arc of his friend’s decline but Mr Kernan’s decline was mitigated by the fact that certain of those friends who had known him at his highest point of success still esteemed him as a character.
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--Yes, that’s it, said Mr Cunningham, Jack and I and M’Coy here – we’re all going to wash the pot.
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Every other order of the Church has to be reformed at some time or other but the Jesuit Order was never once reformed. It never fell away.
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--But, of course, said Mr Cunningham quietly and effectively, our religion is the religion, the old, original faith.
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--Allow me, said Mr Cunningham positively, it was Lux upon Lux. And Pius IX. his predecessor’s motto was Crux upon Crux that is, Cross upon Cross – to show the difference between their two pontificates.
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--No, damn it all, said Mr Kernan sensibly, I draw the line there. I’ll do the job right enough. I’ll do the retreat business and confession, and…all that business. But…no candles! No, damn it all, I bar the candles!
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Get the entire Grace LitChart as a printable PDF.
Tom Kernan Quotes in Grace
The Grace quotes below are all either spoken by Tom Kernan or refer to Tom Kernan. 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:
).
Grace
Quotes
Two gentleman who were in the lavatory at the time tried to lift him up: but he was quite helpless. He lay curled up at the foot of the stairs down which he had fallen…. His hat had rolled a few yards away and his clothes were smeared with the filth and ooze of the floor on which he had lain, face downwards.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Mr Power, a much younger man, was employed in the Royal Irish Constabulary Office in Dublin Castle. The arc of his social rise intersected the arc of his friend’s decline but Mr Kernan’s decline was mitigated by the fact that certain of those friends who had known him at his highest point of success still esteemed him as a character.
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--Yes, that’s it, said Mr Cunningham, Jack and I and M’Coy here – we’re all going to wash the pot.
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Every other order of the Church has to be reformed at some time or other but the Jesuit Order was never once reformed. It never fell away.
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--But, of course, said Mr Cunningham quietly and effectively, our religion is the religion, the old, original faith.
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--Allow me, said Mr Cunningham positively, it was Lux upon Lux. And Pius IX. his predecessor’s motto was Crux upon Crux that is, Cross upon Cross – to show the difference between their two pontificates.
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--No, damn it all, said Mr Kernan sensibly, I draw the line there. I’ll do the job right enough. I’ll do the retreat business and confession, and…all that business. But…no candles! No, damn it all, I bar the candles!
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