Brian Moore’s Black Robe follows Father Laforgue, a Jesuit priest, as he treks the Canadian wilderness to uphold his duties to his faith. Although love and salvation supposedly inspire Laforgue on his mission, his true motivation, and ultimately, the motivation of his colleagues, is greed. The novel quickly establishes that the concept of martyrdom enthralls Laforgue even more than the love he supposedly has for the Algonkian. “Ever since the Order had granted his petition to be sent to New France he had dreamed of the glory of martyrdom in that faraway land” (Moore, 33). Laforgue equates death in the name of God with glory that he may achieve, using this idea as a goal attainable through his work in converting the Canadian natives. Laforgue prays that he may be assigned a mission that will martyr him like those whom he idolizes (Moore, 34), indicating that it is not a desire to help natives reach paradise that has brought him to New France. Rather, he has come with the intention of fulfilling his own desires. Laforgue’s self-centered motivations show that greed, rather than love, is at the root of his mission. The extent of the missionaries’ greed is further evidenced by their ability to welcome the death and baptism of the Algonkian people as an…show more content… Rather, excessive desire motivates their missions, as they endeavor to please God and gain glory at the cost of native lives. The proper Christian ideals of love and salvation hardly factor into the missionaries’ treatment of the Algonkian people, who sacrifice their beliefs and culture so the missionaries may please God. Rather than fulfilling God’s will, the mission of Laforgue and his colleagues achieves personal goals, and due to their immense greed, the Jesuit missionaries of Black Robe are more sinful than the so-called “Savages” they attempt to
