The protagonist of the book, Tarwater, is a 14-year-old boy who spends the narrative battling with various internal and external forces over his destiny to become a prophet. These forces include the memory of his great uncle Mason, who grooms him to receive and spread the word of God; his uncle Rayber, who seeks to erase Mason’s influence and induct Tarwater into a secular existence; and the voice of the friend in his head, a personification of Satan who compels him to commit violent acts. His chief conflict surrounds a promise made to Mason that he would baptize Rayber’s son, Bishop. Tarwater resolves this conflict by simultaneously baptizing and drowning the boy.

Contemptuous and arrogant, Tarwater has little patience for Rayber and his cosmopolitan, intellectual pursuits. The boy is deeply torn about his allegiance toward Christianity and his great uncle’s teachings. For example, Tarwater vacillates between guilt and pride over denying Mason a Christian burial. He is also inexorably drawn to the Pentecostal tabernacle in town, yet when Rayber interrogates him as to his reason for being there, Tarwater responds, “I only gone to spit on it” (136).