through which to understand the complexity of his struggles with his spirituality." John's conversation with Elisha and Elisha's kiss led Stanley Macebuh to argue that John's salvation is through homosexual love though others have argued that goes too far. Yet Mason Stokes perhaps goes even further, arguing that both John's struggle against his father and his religious conversion reflect his struggle against "a heterosexuality that terrorizes" him, which is reflected in the conflict between Gabriel's obsession with descendants and his strict religious sexual code. The novel's depictions of heterosexuality (rape, prostitution, adultery, loveless marriages) is contrasted with John's love for Elisha, which "somehow purer, more loving, than the novel's often perverse heterosexual expressions". Other critics have examined the ties between race and sexuality in the novel. Andrew Connolly draws a connection between Gabriel's guilt over his sexuality and the "persistent racial stereotypes surrounding black male sexuality and the thread of violence that accompanies those stereotypes" and argues that John's conversion represents "the unrealized potential that black men can resist systemic pressures and embrace their sexuality without confirming racist stereotypes." This connection is highlighted as Gabriel recalls the body of a black soldier who has been castrated and lynched. Family John's religious struggle is also parallel to his struggle with his father. At the end of the novel, in his moment of "salvation", John is knocked to the ground by the Holy Ghost. He then hears a voice that says, "Get up, John, Get up boy. Don't let him keep you there. You got everything your Daddy got". In this way, his religious revelation, while representing an acceptance of his father's religion, also reflects his rejection of his father's authority and the burgeoning of his own individuality, rather than merely accepting the role his father has created for him within the family. Other relationships throughout the novel also cast light on the notion of family including Gabriel's emotionally and physically sterile marriage to Deborah, Elizabeth's adoption by her aunt and abandonment by her father, Florence's resentment toward her mother, Gabriel's lack of relationship with his biological son Royal, Elizabeth's relationship with John's biological father Richard, Florence's marriage to the unreliable Frank, and Florence and Gabriel's mother's reflections on her lovers and children while still a slave. Guilt An early reviewer noted that "Guilt, guilt, guilt chimes through the book. Gabriel is guilty. His first wife Deborah is guilty though she was