Ron Hansen’s Mariette In Ecstasy dives into the dimensions of spirituality through the protagonist postulant Mariette Baptiste. Hansen’s challenges readers to explore beyond his descriptive narrative to find further meaning in the themes of suffering, power, and gender. Mariette Baptist represents a prideful, young woman who challenges and undercuts the Priory of The Sisters of The Crucifixion through her eccentric faith. Mariette’s piety generates discourse within the convent about the sincerity in her disposition for a religious life. The sisters are challenged to see Mariette’s faith as real and pure. Her religious practices involving self-inflicted penances disrupt the conventional ways of the priory. Furthermore, Mariette implores herself …show more content…
Although there is no apparent reason for scorching her hands, Hansen suggests Mariette found an excuse to put her hands into the water. He does so through his sequence of events, nothing how Mariette was silent with Hermance and peering down at the bowl of steam. Hansen makes this moment seem irrational of Mariette, but readers know everything Mariette does is thought-out. Her response to Hermance, “just wanted to hurt,” has a larger undertone. Hansen could be emphasizing Mariette’s ambition to have such pain to draw attention to herself, or she could be making reparations for her past sins and this would be her moral obligation to “just” want to hurt for her mistakes. Her remark fuels the undermining and crazy feeling readers can associate with her character. It also creates the sense that Mariette’s personality is lost through her yearning to be and feel for something else. Hansen stages the passage to reveal a theological connection through the parallel to Christ’s suffering. Mariette offers sorrow in a direct relation to Christ offering …show more content…
The pain she causes herself is Mariette being the vessel of God’s grace. Mariette’s intention to suffer displays a severe ambition and pride that she has a calling for a higher purpose. This purpose is also explored through Mariette’s experience with the stigmata. Mariette suddenly appears with the wounds of Jesus Christ, and Hansen creates a disturbance of power between female and male relationships to Christ. Mariette has been chosen above the male figures of the Church, and she shares in the appearance and bleeding of Christ wounds. Hansen connects female reproduction to Christ suffering. This ideology fits with Mariette because she has the capacity to perform the transfiguration of Christ, bringing the Grace of God to the World. This feminization of Christ allows Mariette to have a deeper connection with Him and reinforces the idea she has been chosen. Mariette’s intimacy in Christ’s pain is her desire to be more than just a sister, and even more than a Saint. Mariette associates His wounds with her own wounds, thus taking His ability to redeem as her having this capability too. Hansen uses Mariette’s relationship with Christ to draw on the theological formulation of Christ’s wounds as female reproduction. This idea challenges the notion of power within the priory and Roman
When Marie tries to ask the protagonist to take a walk, this action shows that she is trying to achieve Pauline’s dream by getting her outside of the house. Therefore, she could finally feel the true meaning of freedom. Nevertheless, Pauline’s mother’s response demonstrates that she wants her daughter’s safety more than anything. The mother tries to keep Pauline away from the danger, so the protagonist can at last have a healthier life. However, Agathe’s reply shows that her mother is willing to sacrifice Pauline’s dream to keep her secure. Therefore, the author uses contrasting characters to mention that safety is more valuable. Furthermore, the protagonist starts to describe Tante Marie and reveals that she always has her hair “around her shoulder” (85). When Pauline describes Marie, Pauline shows how her Tante is open-minded. In fact, Marie helps Pauline to let go of her limitations and to get a taste of her dream. Therefore, Marie always wants Pauline to go outside and play hockey or even to take a walk. These actions that Pauline’s Tante takes show how she is determinate to make Pauline’s dream come true. Thus, the author
After thirty years undisturbed in the tomb, Sister Marie Bernard's body was exhumed for examination. The cause for sainthood had begun. When the stone was lifted from the vault, the coffin was immediately seen. It was carried to the room prepared for it and placed on two trestles covered with a cloth. On one side was a table covered with a white cloth. The remains of Bernadette were to be placed on this table. The wooden coffin was unscrewed and the lead coffin cut open to reveal the body in a state of perfect preservation. There was not the slightest trace of an unpleasant smell. The Sisters who had buried her thirty years earlier noted only that her hands had fallen slightly to the left. The words of the surgeon and the doctor, who were under oath, speak for themselves:
Kleist begins his delineation of the Marquise with terms such as "widowed,", "a lady," and "the mother of several well-brought-up children" (Kleist 68). In this introduction the reader learns that the Marquise has experienced both marriage and childbirth. In respect to her deceased husband, the Marquise avoids remarriage and returns to her family's home with her parents, brother and children. The Marquise transforms her role as lover and wife to daughter and mother, therefore stifling an aspect of her womanhood. It is not until she is unknowingly sexually assaulted and made pregnant that her femininity is reborn.
In comparing McMurphy to Jesus, Kesey questions the true nature of Christ’s service while also conveying how negatively minorities are considered. By portraying McMurphy as a Christ figure who dies, Nurse Ratched and the black boys are being considered “sin”. According to the Bible, Jesus’s death brought the remittance of all sins and so when comparing the two, McMurphy’s sacrifice is meant to be the absorption of all of Nurse Ratched’s evil onto him. The author creates a social commentary this way to show that assertive women in higher positions are generally regarded by white men as being inhuman tyrants, or evil. While it could be mistaken that Kesey truly feels that way against women, the resolution of th...
Baron Richard Von Krafft-Ebing, a 19th century German psychiatrist, was quoted as having said, "We find that the sexual instinct, when disappointed and unappeased, frequently seeks and finds a substitute in religion." This may have been the condition of Margery Kempe when she desired to cease all sexual activity with her spouse because of her devotion to God. Instead of performing her duties as a wife, she chose instead to spread her knowledge of God to her community and did so not only in speech, but also in literature. Whatever her motivation for creating such descriptive language, it is evident that her faith in God conquered both her fear of public opinion and the constraints placed upon all women during the period. Living in the 1400s, she steps out of a woman's role and into the territory of a man by living her life publicly, abandoning her position of mother and wife, and recording her life in writing. Fortunately, because she was writing for religious reasons, her work was both permitted and accepted. In The Book of Margery Kempe, she describes her experiences with brilliant imagery, some of which is sexual, all of which is sensual. By using her own senses to portray her spiritual...
The Carmelites were forced no longer wear their habits, but plain clothes instead. Similarly, the Carmelites dressed the statue of the Infant Jesus with plain clothes in hopes to disguise it when they ship it to the Dauphin. Afraid of martyrdom, Blanche flees the convent and returns to her father’s house; she ran right into the heart of her fear. Her father is killed by revolutionaries, and as she stands over his dead body, a revolutionary spots her. He soon realizes that she is a nun, and forces her to receive “communion”, but instead of receiving the Blood of Christ, she is forced to drink to blood of the people slain by the revolutionaries. According to Villeroi, “Blanche at that moment, embodied her martyred country…” She was taken by the “September Mothers”, thus falling right into the hands of her foes. Likewise, the Revolutionaries intercepted the package containing the Infant King, and it too, fell right into the hands of the foes. The Carmelites expected this to happen, as their motivation of sending the package was to get the Dauphin martyred, as they themselves wanted to be martyred. This hope for martyrdom was what led Blanche to flee the convent. The Carmelites are now being brought to the scaffold, and Blanche is present there against the crowd. After the last nun is martyred, Blanche, still in the crowd, carries on their song. The
...at matter can be a means of grace” (Hendricks 9). Through her use of religious symbolism, O’Connor’s character of The Misfit gives her audience hope that a gruesome character could find grace, but consequently, he fails to recognize grace when it appears in front of him.
For example, the motif of change versus tradition is apparent in the overall persecution of the Huguenots. France was predominantly Catholic and considered any other religion heretical. Because Catholicism had been the central religion for so long, the government and religious authorities are unwilling to allow any change in philosophy. The Huguenots are forced to rebel against traditional customs as they establish their own practices. Another theme perceived in the text is convention versus rebellion. This is a slightly more abstract idea, though still arguably present. Rather than submit to the demand for abjuration, little Marie rebels against the Catholic priest. When asked to pen her signature, Marie quotes Matthew 10:33, writing, “‘He who denieth me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in Heaven’” (Sedgwick 9). Similarly, the midwife also portrays the convention versus rebellion theme. Initially, she has given over to convention due to the forbiddance of practice nailed to her door. However, she has a change in attitude and outright defies the state to aid Madame Emilie d’Argile. These themes all contribute to the underlying message of the
What Sister Helen is trying to convey is that capital punishment, poverty, and violence must be understood as three symptoms of the general injustice of society. Each struggle for the poor and disposed is a struggle for justice. As for Patrick Sonnier and Robert Willie, taking responsibility for their crimes is the first step to atonement. The state officials Sister Helen encounters must understand that they bear some of the responsibility for the executions they carry out. Sister Helen believes that most of these officials are decent men and women, but she also believes that their participation in an unjust system cannot go unnoticed. Only when each individual claims responsibility for his or her role in the state's death penalty policies can change happen.
In analyzing this story, there are several other interesting facts that merit further exploration. For instance, throughout the story all references to the little convent girl use black or dark references. But, when plunging to her death, the author describes the little convent girl as a "flutter of white petticoats, a show of white stockings". What is the significance of the sudden color change? Also, Since the reader must assume that the little convent girl is Catholic, what can be concluded about a proper catholic committing suicide?
August is the eldest Boatwright sister, and she is the most successful at dealing with grief. She experienced the suicides of two sisters, but she managed to retain her optimism and perspective, unlike June or May. One way August relinquishes grief is through religion. She is the leader of a group called the Daughters of Mary – a group of African-American women who worship Our Lady of Chains. August “manifests the Madonna’s wisdom and protection, balancing out June’s excessive intellectual qualities and May’s excessive emotional qualitie...
Brown, Raymond. A Crucified Christ in Holy Week: Essays on the Four Gospel Passion Narratives. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1986.
Imprisoned in the “cardboard world” for a long time, Antoinette feels so lonely. “Long ago when I was a child and very lonely I tried to kiss her”(Rhys 180). She thinks of her childhood, and she does not remember many things. Undoubtedly, she becomes more abnormal. “One morning when I woke I ached all over. Not the cold, another sort of ache. I saw that my wrists were red and swollen”(181). Something bad has happened to the poor woman. “Grace said, ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me that you don’t remember anything about last night’”(181). Grace’s words imply that Antoinette often forget about something. A submissive wife is changed by her husband’s indifference-- she endures loneliness, coldness and despair.
She talks about how she lost some many babies in her stomach that her husband started to wonder if she was killing them on purpose. Finally, she finds what she thinks is her final chance to have a child, “I thought she was a gift from Heaven when I saw her on the dusty curb, wrapped in a small pink blanket, a few inches away from a sewer as open as a hungry child’s yawn.” (79) After losing baby after baby Marie’s hope is finally restored by finding a child in the street. Although this baby is found to be dead later, the idea of having a kid brings joy to her tragic situation. She is uplifted and overjoyed after feeling remorse from her miscarriages. Once Marie realises the baby is dead she decides to bury it. The pool man catches her, accuses her of witchcraft and alerts the police. While waiting to be arrested Marie is not indulging the thought of being locked away, instead she is imagining something better, “We made a pretty picture standing there. Rose, me, him. Between the pool and the gardenias, waiting for the law.” (96) Marie will most likely be in confinement for the rest of her life for a false accusation but rather than dwelling on it, she pictures this happy family in front of her. Although this situation suggests she’s hitting rock bottom, hope and beauty is still
Catherine’s older sister, Bonaventura, died while having a baby. After not much time of grieving, her parents tried to get Catherine to marry her older sisters widowed husband when she was at the age of sixteen. Catherine would not stand for this so she cut off her hair and fasted. She learned about fasting from her older sister because her sister's husband apparently was not that great of a husband so she would fast until he did the right thing. Catherine’s mother was not amused by this.