75 pages • 2 hours read
Flora Rheta SchreiberSybil
Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1973A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 20-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 20 Summary: “The Voice of Orthodoxy”
In September 1957, conflicted feelings about religion emerge and begin to take over analysis. Though Sybil has always felt trapped by the dictates of her religion, and wants to be free, she is also terrified that analysis will cause her to lose her faith entirely.
The more divided and doubtful she becomes inwardly, the more the “waking” Sybil expresses a commitment to the orthodoxy of her church: no dancing, no smoking, no birthday parties on the Sabbath.
The other personalities express different attitudes toward religion. The duo of personalities named Peggy remonstrate that religion is supposed to be a source of comfort, but religion has never helped any of them. Peggy Lou exclaims that she’d like to tear the church down. Vanessa is contemptuous of the Church’s prohibitions, and scathingly derides the hypocritical bigotry of the congregation in Willow Corners. She says she can’t understand the meaning of God’s love and indeed can’t understand what love was at all, but she “did know [she] didn’t want God to be like [her] mother” (297). Marcia remembers feeling troubled by and scared of her father’s talk about the end of the world, knowing it was something she was supposed to look forward to but was secretly upset because there were so many things she wanted to do in this life that she wouldn’t be able to. Mary, of all the selves, is the most religious, but rejects her father’s church in favor of the pared-down religion of her grandmother, which values prayer, honesty, and the leading of a moral, Christian life.
Vicky emerges to inform Dr. Wilbur that Sybil’s illness is a key factor in her conflict with religion. Since she began “losing time,” she worried about her relationship with God. She worried that her illness was a form of punishment, and the handiwork of Satan.
Together, Dr. Wilbur and Sybil and her many selves try to find a workable relationship with religion. When Sybil becomes perturbed by her courses in zoology and evolution, they read passages from The Origin of Species together. Sybil recalls a memory from a church she was part of when she lived in Omaha, with a congregation that was more educated, less rigid, and more humanistic. Sybil was invited to draw in front of the audience of 500 as the pastor preached, bringing the scenes of his sermon to life. The audience was riveted, the pastor ecstatic, and Sybil’s parents proud. Later, when Sybil looked at the drawings she produced, she only recognized a few of them.
Chapter 21 Summary: “The Wine of Wrath”
The memory of the Omaha church brings several personalities Dr. Wilbur has not yet met into the analysis over the course of fall 1957, all of whom had participated in making the fantastical, terrifying drawings on the pulpit.
Marjorie is a small willowy brunette, vivacious and quick to laugh. Uniquely, Marjorie is not depressed in the present, and has never been depressed in the past. She makes coy jokes and wry comments, and never mentions Sybil’s name.
Helen is unassertive in manner but nevertheless ambitious, determined to “be somebody, to do things in [her] own way” (305). At the mention of Hattie, Helen crawls under the desk, teeth chattering, and declares that she never wants to see her mother again.
Sybil Ann, a pale, stringy girl with ash-blond hair, is quiet and listless, the most depressed of Sybil’s personalities. Sybil Ann takes over when “everything was too much” (306).
Clara, who announces that she is 23 and never had a mother, says she knows more about religion than the other selves. She says she believes in God without reservation, in the Bible as a revelation of His Truth, and in Satan, who is his antithesis. Clara doesn’t like Sybil, she says, because Sybil keeps her from the one thing she likes to do–study. She’s contemptuous of Sybil’s “wall of anger,” her passivity, and her inability to face things (310). Dr. Wilbur attempts to persuade Clara that it is in her “own” self-interest to help her drill down Sybil’s wall of denial.
Nancy Lou Ann, who appears in Dr. Wilbur’s office the day after Clara, is a fearful personality, the one who has internalized Sybil’s parents’ and grandparents’ apocalyptic beliefs. Nancy Lou Ann is afraid of explosions, believes the end of days will come within her lifetime, and is terrified that Catholics will soon take over the government and persecute everyone else.
In the middle of Nancy Lou Ann’s increasingly hysterical analysis, Vicky interrupts Dr. Wilbur’s attempts to persuade Nancy Lou Ann to “join” Sybil to air her concern. She’s worried, she says, that Nancy Lou Ann and Clara will bring forward concerns Sybil doesn’t have to deal with right now, including suicidal thoughts–concerns she doesn’t think Sybil can handle.
Chapters 20-21 Analysis
These chapters explore the personalities that emerge from Sybil’s struggle with religion, a struggle that will persistently delay Sybil’s progress in analysis.
Like Chapter 12, when Schreiber recounts the ways each of Sybil’s personalities respond differently to her parents’ sexuality, Schreiber’s elaboration of Sybil’s personalities’ different attitudes towards religion personifies and makes visible how complex and intricate all of our psyches can be. These chapters illustrate that it is difficult for Sybil to let religion go because her relationship with it varies. Her father and grandfather’s religion causes personalities such as Nancy Lou Ann and Marcia a large amount of anxiety, and the waking Sybil’s commitment to orthodoxy cripples her desire for freedom, isolating her socially from the people around her from childhood onwards. On the other hand, the memory of the church in Omaha represents an example of Sybil’s positive attachment to religion: in symbolic contrast to the anecdote in which Sybil’s mother rejects her homemade Christmas ornament, the Omaha church fosters and celebrates Sybil’s artistry, creating the circumstances for a rare moment of pride from her parents.
