The author includes an explanation of his purpose in writing the story. He wishes to illustrate some of the moral failings of mankind, and he does so through the fictionalization of actual events, known medical conditions, and the phenomenon of ventriloquism.

The story opens with the protagonist, Clara, informing her readers that she is indulging their curiosity only to show that “erroneous or imperfect discipline” (5) can be the cause of great harm. She assures her readers that she is resigned to the ruin of her life and happiness; nothing worse can happen to her then her brother’s murder of his family and himself. She lives entirely in the present with no contemplation of the past or hope for the future. All the good has been ripped from her life, and no one in the world has suffered as much as she has.

Clara then relates how her father came to be fixated on religion and evangelism. He had always been of a disciplined nature and prone to depression. As a young man, he became obsessed with an idiosyncratic form of Protestantism invented by himself. His beliefs were based on a relatively uneducated interpretation of those parts of the Bible which he read according to his own ideas and preconceptions.