Angels Symbol Analysis

Though he makes sparing use of the image, Shaara uses angels to symbolize humanity’s potential for both transcendence and atrocity. As a schoolboy, Joshua Chamberlain had delivered Hamlet’s soliloquy including the line, “What a piece of work is man … in action how like an angel!” In response, Chamberlain’s father had joked, “…[I]f he’s an angel, he’s sure a murderin’ angel.” Chamberlain had then written an oration titled “Man, the Killer Angel.” Though Chamberlain does not elaborate on the content of the oration, his experiences at Gettysburg cover the spectrum of human potential—mercy to mutineers, murderous anger at enemies, bravery at Little Round Top, prejudice and compassion toward an escaped slave—and suggest what it looks like for a human being to be endowed with such vast “angelic” capacities.

While scouting Cemetery Hill, cavalryman John Buford spots a white angel statue in the quiet cemetery overlooking Gettysburg, its “arms uplifted, [with] a stony sadness.” The sight brings him an unexplained comfort. After the battle, Chamberlain sits atop Cemetery Hill himself and watches bodies being laid out with care on the field below. Compassionately, he thinks of the deceased as “Killer Angels”—embodying the paradox of such a term himself, as a soldier feeling pity and love toward his enemies.