"He was so tenacious he defied the distraction of women by refusing to have them in his presence, just as later in life he denied his blindness by calling for more and more candles"
About this Quote
Tenacity, in Kit Williams's hands, isn’t a virtue so much as a beautifully absurd coping mechanism. The line sketches a man who treats the world like a negotiable nuisance: if women are “distractions,” remove women; if blindness is humiliating, drown it in candlelight. It’s funny in the way denial is funny when you’re not the one paying for it.
The intent is character surgery. Williams compresses a whole psychology into two parallel gestures: exclusion and excess. First, the subject controls temptation by controlling the environment, outsourcing self-discipline to a locked door. Later, he repeats the same maneuver with fate itself, trying to brute-force reality through ritual. “More and more candles” isn’t practical; it’s theatrical, a stubborn little performance staged for servants, visitors, maybe even for himself. The phrasing implies escalation: the refusal to concede becomes a habit, then an identity.
Subtextually, the quote needles a particular kind of masculine myth: the heroic ascetic who “masters” desire, the iron-willed figure who never admits weakness. Williams undercuts that myth by showing how mastery can look like avoidance, and how pride can masquerade as persistence. The symmetry between women and blindness is the tell: both are framed as intrusions on the protagonist’s autonomy, not as human beings or physical facts. In that framing, the world is always wrong; the self is always right.
Context matters because Williams often traffics in fable-like portraiture: vivid, slightly exaggerated details that feel anecdotal, almost folklore. The candles, like a punchline, expose the cost of refusing to see what’s already true.
The intent is character surgery. Williams compresses a whole psychology into two parallel gestures: exclusion and excess. First, the subject controls temptation by controlling the environment, outsourcing self-discipline to a locked door. Later, he repeats the same maneuver with fate itself, trying to brute-force reality through ritual. “More and more candles” isn’t practical; it’s theatrical, a stubborn little performance staged for servants, visitors, maybe even for himself. The phrasing implies escalation: the refusal to concede becomes a habit, then an identity.
Subtextually, the quote needles a particular kind of masculine myth: the heroic ascetic who “masters” desire, the iron-willed figure who never admits weakness. Williams undercuts that myth by showing how mastery can look like avoidance, and how pride can masquerade as persistence. The symmetry between women and blindness is the tell: both are framed as intrusions on the protagonist’s autonomy, not as human beings or physical facts. In that framing, the world is always wrong; the self is always right.
Context matters because Williams often traffics in fable-like portraiture: vivid, slightly exaggerated details that feel anecdotal, almost folklore. The candles, like a punchline, expose the cost of refusing to see what’s already true.
Quote Details
| Topic | Perseverance |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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