Keywords
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead, Division, Reconciliation
Abstract
Although the characters and thematic throughlines vary across the four books in the Gilead series, each book takes an interest in the reality of division and considers ways of negotiating and healing that division. Whether the divisions are theological, familial, socioeconomic or racial, their presence haunts the text and the question of their resolution always hovers near the surface. Taken together, these considerations of difference across the four books demonstrate that Robinson populates her novels with chasms that her characters bridge, but only partially so. This coexistence of alienation and reconciliation allows Robinson to articulate a vision of Christian community where the knottiness of human affairs is acknowledged but God’s capacity to smooth out those knots—to create coherence out of disorder—is never discounted.
Issue and Volume
Volume 17, Issue 1
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Stevenson, Zachary
(2024)
"“Our Experience is Fragmentary”: Partial Redemption in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead Tetralogy,"
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism: Vol. 17:
Iss.
1, Article 7.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/criterion/vol17/iss1/7