What are the forces that motivate Jocelin?
My thoughts are that the forces include: his faith (belief he is chosen/
belief
the cathedral church floats on a raft and God will provide); his angel
(the spinal tb); his -we presume rational- desire to further glorify God's
house by completing its diagram of prayer in the shape of a body; his
sublimated sexual urges; Alison's money (we presume it has to be spent
on this); his stubborn nature (characteristic perhaps of a visionary
completer-finisher);the arrival of the Nail; perhaps his
combative
nature once he runs into Roger's opposition and his compulsion to go
up as the construction rises. is there a vanity that wants to see
four heads of his on the tower, immortalising himself?
with time, simply the complexity - he cannot extricate himself (hence the
Visitor's questions seem so simple and inadequate, both to Jocelin and to us
as spectators from his point of view)
The forces acting to defeat him include: the devil(s), as he sees
things, esp the storm; Alison with her revelations; Gilbert showing
him the hollowness of the central crossing support pillars; Roger
and his rationalism; worldly concerns such as paying bills, keeping
the masons there, and opposition in chapter; his spinal tb.
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