God and Religion Gardner chooses God and religion as one of his central themes in “Redemption.” More specifically, Gardner chooses to explore theodicy, the defense of God’s omnipotence and goodness in the face of evil. The central question of theodicy is, of course, if God is good and all-powerful, why does God allow evil in…
Category: Literature
Redemption by John Gardner – Characters
Betty Hawthorne Betty Hawthorne is Jack’s mother. She grieves for her son in secret; the outward manifestation of this grief is a significant weight gain. Betty struggles to keep her family together through a very difficult time. Fortunately she is comforted by her supportive friends and is able to find the strength she needs to…
Redemption by John Gardner – Summary
”Redemption” is set in a small farming community in upstate New York. The story opens abruptly with John (Champlin) Gardner, Jr. the announcement that, ”Jack Hawthorne ran over and killed his brother, David.” Jack was driving a tractor and towing a cultipacker when his brother fell off the large machine. Jack is unable to act…
A New England Nun – Analysis
A number of critics have noted that the opening paragraph of Mary Wilkins Freeman’s “A New England Nun” very closely echoes the first stanza of English poet Thomas Gray’s famous “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”: The curfew lolls the knell of parting day, / The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea, / The…
A New England Nun – Setting
Religion and Economics Mary Wilkins Freeman wrote most of her best-known short stories in the 1880s and 1890s. They provide a unique snapshot of a particular time and place in American history. The small towns of postCivil War New England were often desolate places. The war itself, combined with urbanization, industrialization, and westward expansion, had…
A New England Nun – Realism, Symbolism & Point of View
Setting This story about a woman who finds, after waiting for her betrothed for fourteen years, that she no longer wants to get married, is set in a small village in nineteenth-century New England. Critics have often remarked that the setting is particular but also oddly universal as are the themes Freeman chooses to treat….
A New England Nun – Themes
Choices and Consequences One important theme in Mary Wilkins Freeman’s “A New England Nun” is that of the consequences of choice. Louisa is faced with a choice between a solitary and somewhat sterile life of her own making and the life of a married woman. She has waited fourteen years for Joe Dagget to return…
A New England Nun – Characters
Caesar Caesar is the old yellow dog Louisa Ellis keeps chained securely to his hut in her yard. “Fat and sleepy” with “yellow rings which looked like spectacles around his dim old eyes,” Caesar “seldom lifts] up his voice in a growl or bark.” The pet of Louisa’s cherished dead brother, Caesar bit someone when…
A New England Nun – Summary
“A New England Nun” opens with Louisa Ellis sewing peacefully in her sitting room. It is late afternoon and the light is waning. We see Louisa going about her daily activities calmly and meticulously; she gathers currants for her tea, prepares a meal, feeds her dog, tidies up her house carefully, and waits for Joe…
Mrs. Bathurst by Rudyard Kipling – Analysis – Essay
If you have come away from “Mrs. Bathurst” more than a little confused and frustrated by its complexity, then rest assured that you are neither the first nor the last to do so. Since its growing popularity as one of Kipling’s most complex stories, “Mrs. Bathurst” has received a barrage of critical response, most of…