Per Vollan’s hollowed-out Bible

Per Vollan’s hollowed-out Bible is both a concealment device and a pivotal piece of evidence: its ordinary religious appearance hides papers intended to help Sonny Lofthus confess and three small bags of heroin, while its damaged pages later expose the method to Arild Franck.

Construction and Contents

A chaplain sees that Sonny has opened the Bible and recognizes the simple mechanism: cut-out pages form a compartment. Inside are folded papers containing information Sonny needs in order to confess, as well as three small bags of heroin. The book therefore carries two kinds of contraband at once: the means for Sonny’s confession and the drug he possesses.

Use in Sonny’s Confession

The papers connect the Bible to Sonny’s effort to confess. Rather than serving only as a religious text, it becomes a discreet container through which the information he needs reaches him. The chaplain’s observation also places the book within the prison’s informal channels of access and communication.

Discovery and Consequences

After an attempted breakout and Sonny’s disappearance, Franck returns to cell 317 and searches it. He picks up the Bible, knows that Vollan used it to smuggle heroin, and throws it against the wall. It falls open, its pages mangled; Franck sees the broken text as damaged creeds and meaningless sentences. The concealment method that had made the Bible useful is now visible through the damage, linking Vollan to the heroin smuggling and sharpening Franck’s search for the missing Sonny.

Narrative Significance

The Bible’s changing function gives the object its significance. Its familiar religious form offers concealment, while the cut-out pages turn it into a practical container; when Franck hurls it against the wall, that hidden use becomes conspicuous. The contrast between sacred text and concealed heroin is concrete, but the book also carries the papers associated with Sonny’s intended confession. It thus joins the novel’s intersecting concerns with faith, wrongdoing, and the possibility of telling the truth.