41 pages • 1 hour read
William Peter BlattyThe Exorcist
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1971A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Chris MacNeil
A successful actress and a single mother, Chris MacNeil is one of the novel’s central characters. She arrives in Georgetown to finish shooting a movie, but finds herself embroiled in a religious battle between good and evil.
At first, her life seems to be idyllic. She is a famous movie star, the mother of a loving daughter, and has a full retinue of staff. Even her professional ambitions are about to be realized, as she has been asked to direct a film. But Chris’s life is far from perfect. Her relationship with her ex-husband is acrimonious and she fears for the effect this has on Regan. Her shot at directing only comes at the insistence of a male friend. Added to this, her work means that Chris does not pay attention to everything in her life: She is not aware that her daughter has been playing with a Ouija board; and her business investments are failing.
As Regan’s situation begins to worsen, Chris drops everything and dedicates her entire life to helping her daughter: She has to give up her potential directing job, she stays by her daughter side, and she spends all her money searching for a cure. She is even willing to compromise her beliefs, abandoning her atheism.
Chris blames herself for her daughter’s suffering. Her desperate search for a cure is, in part, a search for redemption. Her effort eventually pays off. Regan and Chris leave Georgetown, though Chris will never be able to forget what she has experienced.
Regan MacNeil
Regan MacNeil is chiefly a vessel for the demon, so her actual character is a flat and uncomplicated picture of innocent girlhood. Whether diligently attending to her schoolwork, creating artistic sculptures, or leaving a rose on the table beside her mother’s breakfast, Regan seems to be the perfect child.
This innocence provides a shocking contrast to what Regan becomes. Her transformation can be read as a deeply unpleasant take on female adolescence, as she literally becomes an entirely different person. The demon that possesses her is malevolent, violent, and cruel, lashing out at those around the girl. At the same time, as Regan’s body is assaulted by the demon and by male doctors who perform increasingly painful procedures to fix her, Regan’s only real narrative role is to suffer. She is hurt psychologically and physically, and her torture becomes the main plot device motivating characters like Karras, Chris, Sharon, and even Karl.
Regan’s reappearance at the end of the book represents an ostensible return to normalcy. But she will bear the scars and the trauma of her experiences long after she has left Georgetown.
Damien Karras
Like Regan, Damien Karras spends the majority of the novel suffering. But unlike Regan, he is able to play an active role in his redemption. As a Jesuit priest and psychiatrist, Karras embodies of one of the novel’s themes: the battle between reason and faith.
Karras lives with pain and the guilt and makes little effort to hide his depression. He feels great remorse over the squalid conditions in which his mother lives and dies, and laments his inability to help her. This guilt has caused a crisis of faith, which he tries to remedy with exercise and alcohol. He is in danger of losing his faith altogether. Karras’s lapsed faith fuels his determination to find a scientific explanation for Regan speaking in strange languages or furniture flying across the room. Just as the demon is fighting for control of Regan, Karras is fighting for control of his own doubts.
The restoration of his faith allows him to defeat the demon. When Karras sees how Merrin sacrificed himself and when he learns about Kinderman’s acceptance of the reality of Regan’s situation, he knows what he has to do. Karras challenges the demon to possess him and then kills himself, taking the demon with him.
The Demon
The demon is the antagonistic plot catalyst, whose possession of Regan’s body causes the other characters to confront their doubts and fears. With its ability to read minds, the demon destabilizes each character, magnifying their insecurities. It tells Chris that Regan is a killer and suffers from her parents’ divorce. It mocks Karras for his inability to save his mother. It taunts Merrin for being an arrogant man. It laughs at Karl’s suffering over his daughter. It is vindictive, taunting, and cunning, knowing exactly what it needs to say to have the most impact.
But this mocking arrogance becomes the demon’s downfall as it rises to the challenge issued by Karras. The priest mocks the demon for having possessed a child and challenges it to possess him. The demon takes this bait, believing itself more powerful and cleverer than Karras. This decision seals its fate, as Karras kills himself, taking the demon with him.
Burke Dennings
Burke Dennings is a British film director whose heavy drinking often leads him into difficult situations. He argues with people and accuses them of terrible deeds, relying on his charm to escape retribution. But in spite of his poor behavior, he is a close friend of Chris. He trusts her and she trusts him. Chris knows Burke so well, in fact, that she is able to correctly diagnose his alcoholism, suggesting that he drinks heavily in order to live up to his own personal legend.
Burke is often out of control and abusive. He harangues his film crew and relentlessly mocks Karl. Despite seeing this, Chris never confronts Burke—instead, she enables his behavior, relying on him to advance professionally. Regan dislikes that Chris and Burke are close. She wonders whether they will get married, and, when possessed, kills Burke after he is left alone with her in the house. The unspoken implication of sexual predation is never addressed.
