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Chapter 4
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
On her side of the curtain, Sarah experiences Father Ranaulf as a disembodied, emotionally distant voice. She misses Father Peter. At first, she thinks that she enjoyed his voice (and visits) so much more than Ranulf’s because she could connect Father Peter with a face that she’d seen prior to her enclosure. But as the weeks pass, she realizes that she misses Father Peter’s questions and stories the most. His stories connected her to the world and his questions helped her understand herself—and her religious calling—better. In contrast, Father Ranaulf’s visits are so impersonal that she associates them more with the written words in a book than with a living human being.
As Sarah realizes how different Father Peter and Father Ranaulf are, her growing disappointment hints at the role compassion and kindness play in relationships. Ranaulf readily accepts authority over Sarah, confidently assigning her penance for her sins. But he struggles to take responsibility for her in the same way Peter did. Peter didn’t just fulfil his duties as her confessor, but offered her spiritual guidance in the form of advice and in the much more subtle example he set when he told stories that encouraged her to remember her connection with the world beyond her cell. In other words, he entered a human relationship with Sarah, and enriched her life (including her spiritual practice!) as a result.
Themes
As winter deepens, Sarah’s spirit falters. Scratches appear on her ankles again and she sees faces—sometimes comforting, more often alarming—in the shadows that her candles throw on the walls. When Jocelyn, ill and injured after a particularly nasty episode with Hugh, comes seeking comfort and counsel, Sarah sends her away to look for help from Father Simon or Maud, or the healer.
Again, it isn’t fully clear whether some external force (either earthly or supernatural) is harming Sarah or whether she’s hurting herself with the scratches. She is, however, unquestionably hurting herself with her excessive fasting and physical penance. Yet her devotion to the external rule neither helps her on her own spiritual path nor makes her useful to the people around her.
Themes
Sarah isn’t alone in her cell. The scratching noises continue, and she begins to hear a thin voice encouraging her to suffer. She wonders, sometimes, if the voice is Agnes’s or the Devil’s, since she knows that sometimes the Devil appears disguised as a holy person. Still, Louise reassures Sarah and Anna about Agnes’s holiness. People say she could cure the sick with a touch, and Louise feels certain that her bones are relics that will protect and guide Sarah. So, when Sarah hears the voice quoting the Rule, she decides that she’s being punished for not following it well enough. She undresses and beats herself with her own belt as self-imposed penance.
Themes
