Green takes the persona of Binky Brown, who opens the story writing a confession of the neurosis that has tortured him since puberty. In his childhood, he knocks over a statue of the Virgin Mary and feels intense guilt over this affront to his mother and to God. Binky is raised a Catholic and undergoes the religious indoctrination of nuns at a strict Catholic parochial school that commonly employs corporal punishment. He forms an image of a vengeful God, which fills him with feelings of fear and guilt.