The secular angel in contemporary children's literature: David ...

graceful and luminous, but this was something totally different and it “terrified her that she
could conjure up something so frightening” (McNish, 2007, 35). This very thought suggests
that she has internalized her diagnosis of being mentally ill, for she was told by the doctors at
the hospital that seeing angels was proof that her mind created and presented her with
fictitious creatures that did not exist. The fact that what she sees in front of her now is so
horrifying means that her condition could be taking a turn for the worse. After Freya has
ignored her brother’s plea for a conversation on an important matter, the dark angel reappears,
thereby offering the reader an even more detailed, and more chilling description: “Each wing
rose and fell without grace, a wet slap of matted filth. The angel’s head was grossly
misshapen. It had once seen a deformed woman with a head that shape, deliberately chosen it
for itself, then gone window-shopping among the worst of humanity 34 for its other features”
(McNish, 2007, 51). The reader sees the angel flying, witnessing a robbery, without, however,
attempting to do anything to help. He is seen smiling cruelly, coldly, mocking Freya’s
discomfort and fear at sensing him but not being able to locate him. And finally, he flies to
34 Mestraal’s dark appearance becomes problematic when McNish describes his ugly attributes as having been
taken from “the worst of humanity” (McNish, 2007, 20/51/210), a phrase he repeats throughout the novel. It is
unclear whether he is referring to morally corrupt people or deformed and disabled individuals, or whether he is
using the term in a more ‘loose’ manner, making its connotation awkward and ambiguous. It seems that, with
this phrasing, McNish is using a stereotypical notion of inner morality and drawing a parallel with a person’s
outer appearance. Physical deformity or disability is being correlated with evil intent and amorality. The author
may, of course, be playing with a preconceived notion that outer ugliness signifies inner monstrousness, taking
into consideration that the angelic appearance the reader bears witness to is really a figment of our own
preconceived notions of what angels look like. David Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder write in Narrative
Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse that “During his own era, Montaigne argues that
monstrosity had become the sign for everything mysterious, and thus ‘against nature.’ Thus the body had been
transformed into a symbolic surface that manifests the truth of a malignant morality in need of judgment and
susceptible to extermination” (Mitchell & Snyder, 2000, 70). Because of the recurrent use of the phrase “the
worst of humanity” in the novel, McNish appears at first to be employing this very stereotype; yet, other
instances prove this theory wrong as he clearly shows that this is not the case, as Amy, one of the most
pretentious and cruel characters in the novel, is aesthetically beautiful. The issue, however, becomes even more
problematic if the characteristics of “the worst of humanity” are used by McNish, and consequently by Mestraal,
because they were considered to be the easiest way to manifest evil. This suggests a rather superficial attempt by
the author to convey maliciousness and fear, and begs the question of what other means could have been used
instead to portray the intended emotions.
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