Roland Deschain Sparknotes

The book opens by introducing The Gunslinger, a peacekeeper named Roland Deschain, who is after the Man in Black, a demonic sorcerer that is terrorizing their world’s way of life. On Roland’s journey on muleback, he means a farmer named Brown, whom he tells his previous adventure before arriving in the desert wasteland he’s in now. In the town of Tull, Roland rides into town in hot pursuit of the MiB, but misses him by a week. Since Deschain knows the Man in Black well, he decides to settle down to find justify a reason to stay, and briskly falls in love with the bartender named Alice. Alice informs the Gunslinger about what the Man in Black did when he was in Tull for the week, while Deschain uses Alice as cover to explore the town, and as a lover. An excuse to check what the MiB could have left for him. During his stay, he meets a pastor named Sylvia Pittston, who tells him that she’s pregnant with the Man in Black’s child. Roland rapidly reacts, killing the unborn baby, and tearing the carcass out, all while using his gun. Sylvia quickly gets everybody in town to turn on him, and he departs. The story quickly slips back to Roland,
A figure down the platform appears in Roland’s perception and he believes it’s the Man in Black. The figure is confronted by Roland, only for it to turn out to be a young man named Jake Chambers. As Dechain is near death, dehydrated and hungry, Jake provides him with some jerky and some water to save his life. A quick conversation occurs between him and Jake about how the Man in Black passed through days ago. Jake’s accent doesn’t match Roland’s. Curiously, the Gunslinger asks and then hypnotizes Jake to tell him everything. Jake lived in New York and died by getting pushed into the street by a man dressed in priest's clothing. This “priest” shows up, “blesses” Jake, and then Jake gets hit by a car and dies, in an alternate universe. Somehow he ended up in the Gunslinger’s