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Summary
Themes
and Colors
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
The day after her enclosure, Sarah remembers Swallow (whose real name was Roland), a traveling performer she saw when she was a child. Back then, before she was aware of it as distinctly female, her body felt safe and strong, and she could imagine throwing herself from the shoulders of another acrobat, somersaulting through the air like a bird and landing gracefully on her feet. Now she feels like she’s thrown away her female body and flown up into the air toward God, like she’s surrounded by the clear blue of the sky rather than four thick stone walls.
In becoming an anchoress, Sarah embraced one of the most extreme religious lifestyles of the Middle Ages. Yet, she feels freed rather than imprisoned by the small cell and strict rules. This in turn points toward how unsafe she felt in the world. She suggests the reasons here—something about her female body feels dangerous and bad to her—although readers will have to wait to see her full reasons.
Active
Themes
