Script Notes: Religion

Grassic Gibbon believes institutionalized religion distorts and represses natural instincts. He depicts a congregation who attend church regularly, but without any religious sense. They are gloatingly censorious, and ignorantly dismissive of their preachers. Their response to the Reverend Gibbon’s sermon is comic in its salacious glee - like overgrown children sniggering at "rude" words. A less comic aspect of repression and distortion is seen in Gibbon’s drunkenness and adulterous longings. In John Guthrie’s tormented sexual drive, his blasphemous justification of his lust for Chris, and his brutality towards Will, we see the destructive possibilities of his harsh religious belief. The Standing Stones which Chris finds so attractive and peaceful remain ambiguous. They dominate the landscape and connect it to its past, they embody a sense of timelessness, yet their original meaning is lost. They represent a forgotten religion which once dominated as much as contemporary Christianity and modern certainties.

There is sympathy for the Covenanters murdered at Dunottar, for their terrible plight, and for their courage. For Grassic Gibbon their presbyterian belief is far less significant than their oppression by a ruthless and brutal ruling class.