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Chapter 21
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Anchoress, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Rules and Freedom
Authority, Compassion, and Responsibility
Purity and Contamination
Life, Death, and Hardship
The Power of Words
Summary
Analysis
A few days after Anna’s funeral, Ranaulf walks into the village. He realizes that he’s become more invested in the villagers, their lives, and their fates over time. Eleanor catches up to him and, as is her custom, slips her hand into his. Today she’s quiet. At the anchorhold, he wrenches open the parlor door, swollen with recent rains, and discovers that he doesn’t know what to say to Sarah. He tries to offer words of comfort, but she throws them back in his face through the black curtain. She wants to know why God and St. Margaret refused to hear her prayers. Ranaulf confronts her, reminds her that faith means trusting even without assurances. Prayers, he says, should not become demands. Eventually, he realizes that he can say nothing to comfort Sarah, so he lets the silence between them grow until it has lost the harshness of anger.
For Ranaulf, the process of learning to see and care beyond the walls of his scriptorium happens slowly and naturally such that he hardly notices it until the change has happened. But he welcomes Eleanor’s company for the first time without impatience. The fact that Sarah can so easily weaponize his words offers a reminder that words gain power in their use; they have no inherent magic. That’s why St. Margaret’s prayer didn’t save Anna. In answer, Ranaulf abandons words. He becomes quiet, signaling his humility and ignorance. And this, in turn, disarms Sarah.
Themes
