"The Seven Storey Mountain"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses Thomas Merton's autobiography, "The Seven Storey Mountain", which discusses his life from childhood to adult and the conversion to Roman Catholicism and entry into a monastery. The paper states that the title and the sequence of this book were enthused by Dante's "The Divine Comedy" and relates that Merton's autobiography is divided into three parts: The first describes his life without God (Hell); the second, the beginning of his search for God (Purgatory); and the third, his baptism and entrance into a monastic order (Paradise).

From the Paper:

"The author in the starting of the book "The Seven Storey Mountain" describes himself as a captive of a worldly and selfish world. This evaluation of the new world to a reformatory has struck most of the readers as extreme. The well-known British writer Evelyn Waugh published a well modified story of "The Seven Storey Mountain" in the title Elected Silence in 1949. Waugh removed what he thought as the overstatement in both Merton's way and his judgment of the world out of his monastery. Even though Waugh improved many parts of the text in Merton's book, Merton thought that the polished and sophisticated way chosen by Waugh could not appropriately put across to the audience his intuitive response to his knowledge before and after his transformation. Merton wanted the readers of "The Seven Storey Mountain" to know that his life would have been worthless if he had not got the gift of belief from God; his conversion had drastically transformed his perception of the world."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Giroux, Robert. The Seven Storey Mountain. 50th anniversary ed. Introduction by. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1998. pg 145.
• Merton, Thomas. The Seven Storey Mountain. Harvest Books; Anv edition (1999). ISBN-10: 0156010860. pg 98-210.
• Zuercher, Suzanne. Merton: An Enneagram Profile. Notre Dame, Ind.: Ave Maria Press, 2001. pg 58-99.

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