Gender Roles in The Testament
In the Novel, The Testament by John Grisham, gender roles were clearly defined in a Victorian fashion with the main female character being portrayed as the saint, while the two main men were portrayed as rather devilish. But redemption is in the air. Rachel Lane Porter is a young woman who chose to give up her own wants and needs for the purposes of God, walking completely away from the modern world with all its trimmings and hindrances. She went to live and work with a primitive tribe of Ipaca Indians in the dark jungles of Brazil. The mysterious Rachel was a strong willed, independent, but saintly missionary who chose not to be controlled by the demons of money and materialization of the modern world.
Troy Phelan, Rachel’s father, was the tenth richest man in the United States, all of his own making. But now, having gone through three ex-wives and siring seven children by them, he was old and lonely, unloved, quite eccentric and very reclusive. Troy had been confined to a wheelchair for some time, and was looking for a way to end his life. Most of his heirs, who were circling like vultures waiting for him to die, were only sticking around the old buzzard to see what they might get out of it. Troy didn’t really care who got the money, but he did care who didn’t get it. In spite of his eccentric ways, Troy did something none of his known heirs expected, trying to right a wrong done many years in the past.
Nate O'Riley is a highly energetic Washington lawyer who's worked too hard, lived too fast, and like Troy, has been without any real joy for far too long. His second marriage is at its end, and he is coming out of rehab for the forth time. He is rather unstable, having had only a brief sobriety from the demon that controlled his life, but with a few good intentions, and feisty sense of humor, he returns to the world he has always known. Life has always been difficult to go back to, but this time, there’s a new twist. Nate is hired to search for an illegitamate daughter, Rachel Lane, a missionary, who was unknown to the rest of the family and has been left most of Troy’s massive fortune. Rachel, seeing something good in him and knowing he was searching, had found his true calling for him. God had somehow shown her that he wasn’t just a drunk any more, and that his demons were gone.
The male minds in The Testament could not understand the workings of Rachel’s way of thinking; simply that she must be a little crazy not to take the billions of dollars that she inherited to use for herself. But Rachel simply would not be controlled by any man, nor by his money and chose to leave her self-appointed lawyer Nate with the responsibility of the vast fortune, in order to care for the uncivilized poor and unfortunate of the world. In the end Nate admired her for her strong convictions and saintly unselfishness. In a story that blends ungodly suspense and godly adventure with the legalese of lawyers, who are not ordinarily known for saintly behavior, Rachel and Nate’s lives are forever intertwined and altered by the amazing graces of The Testament.
