The Return of Ruth: Loss and (Heavenly) Restoration in Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping and Lila
This paper offers a comparative analysis of Marilynne Robinson's two novels Housekeeping and Lila (with references to Gilead), suggesting that the life stories of the two female protagonists are both retellings of the biblical narrative of Ruth, to be read as mirror opposites. Lila Dahl re-enac...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2024
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| In: |
Religion & literature
Year: 2023, Volume: 55, Issue: 2/3, Pages: 1-23 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Ruth
/ Reception
/ Robinson, Marilynne 1944-, Housekeeping
/ Robinson, Marilynne 1944-, Lila
/ Loss
/ Restoration
|
| RelBib Classification: | CD Christianity and Culture HB Old Testament KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This paper offers a comparative analysis of Marilynne Robinson's two novels Housekeeping and Lila (with references to Gilead), suggesting that the life stories of the two female protagonists are both retellings of the biblical narrative of Ruth, to be read as mirror opposites. Lila Dahl re-enacts the biblical story by escaping from her life of lonely drifting and marrying a much older man, while the earlier story of Ruth Stone constitutes a tragic reversal of the comic biblical pattern of loss and restoration. This apparent symmetry, however, is complicated by an ongoing awareness of suffering and loss in both Gilead and Lila. The essay argues that in Robinson's fiction, the tension arising from the simultaneity of comic and tragic perspectives is never resolved. The Christian tradition, on the other hand, has tended to resolve it by including in the vision of heavenly restoration an obliteration of painful earthly memories. Accordingly, the second half of the essay places the eschatological vision of the novels in the broader context of Christian theological tradition, discussing the theological implications of Robinson's narrative strategies which contribute to a non-linear perception of time, as well as a non-Newtonian perception of space, in which the irreconcilable realities of joy and loss, dark and light are juxtaposed in paradoxical simultaneity. |
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| ISSN: | 2328-6911 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion & literature
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/rel.2024.a948402 |
