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

2011, 100). He writes that the Jewish and Christian traditions offer two kinds of sins that are
the most prominent: pride (to be like God) and envy (of human beings) (Jones, 2011, 100-
101). In McNish’s narrative, however, the God figure does not exist, and so the notion of sin,
followed by an angel’s need to be like God, or assume his power, becomes irrelevant. The
wish to be like humans, and have the ability to physically interact with them, is mentioned by
Hestron but it does not assume a negative connotation; instead of envy it is expressed as a
deep desire, or longing. Therefore, if the element of sin is taken out of the equation regarding
Mestraal’s ‘fall’, and is assumed that his choice, based on free will, was one of morality, the
question being raised is what darkened him within and drove him to neglect his wards. Freya
asks Mestraal if “‘angels [are] here to help us? To ease our way through life? To guard us
from harm?’” To this Mestraal tells her ‘Do I look like a being that would guard you from
harm?’ (McNish, 2007, 113). The cynicism of his words denotes bitterness and
disappointment. He suggests that the creature he has become could never be perceived as
being able to offer help and protection. The weakness in his actions, or inactions, resembles a
human’s; it was indignation and the feeling of powerlessness against humanity’s
overwhelming amount of pain and suffering that led him to this.
What follows this argument of Mestraal’s moral decision is firstly the novel’s definition
of morality, or its moral code, and secondly, the fact that Mestraal seems not to face any
visible consequences to the immoral choices he made, despite the fact that he continues to
witness this suffering which he could have averted to some degree. In order to establish how
the author defines morality, or which are the morals that are valued within the novel, one must
look at the characters and their actions. Luke and Hestron, along with Luke’s and Freya’s
father and Stephanie stand on one side as they display compassion, self-sacrifice, resilience
and fearlessness. On the other side stands Mestraal, who has abandoned all the above qualities
and settled for indifference, inaction and neglect, followed by Amy who is blatantly and
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