There is no direct mention of God in the story, nor do any of the characters explicitly pray to ask anything of God. The main character, Bertha, does, however, have something like a religious experience which she desperately wants to embrace, sustain, and share with others. This experience is described repeatedly throughout the story as a "feeling of bliss" and also is described as "divine." It centers upon a connection with another woman she has recently met called Miss Fulton. At one key moment in the story, Bertha and Miss Fulton stand side by side in a
circle of unearthly light, understanding each other perfectly, creatures of another world, and wondering what they were to do in this one with all this blissful treasure that burned in their bosoms.
Bertha wishes ardently for her and Miss Fulton to share their "blissful treasure," and the happiness she feels because of her connection with Miss Fulton also makes Bertha feel a heightened sense of love for all of the people around her. Although she never explicitly asks God to sustain the connection between her and Miss Fulton, her ardent desire for this, expressed often in religious language, is always implicitly present.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
What is being asked of God in "Bliss"?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What is the theme of the chapter Lead?
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
The statement "Development policy needs to be about poor people, not just poor countries," carries a lot of baggage. Let's dis...
-
"Mistaken Identity" is an amusing anecdote recounted by the famous author Mark Twain about an experience he once had while traveli...
-
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
De Gouges's Declaration of the Rights of Woman was enormously influential. We can see its influences on early English feminist Mary Woll...
-
As if Hamlet were not obsessed enough with death, his uncovering of the skull of Yorick, the court jester from his youth, really sets him of...
-
In both "Volar" and "A Wall of Fire Rising," the characters are impacted by their environments, and this is indeed refle...
No comments:
Post a Comment