Faculty of Arts,
Chulalongkorn University
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
(1927)
Thornton Wilder
(April
17, 1897 – December 7, 1975)
The
Bridge of San Luis Rey Notes
This short novel was first
published in 1927 and won the 1928 Pulitzer
Prize in the novel
category.
Part
One: Perhaps an Accident
7 "Why
did this happen to those five?":
cf. Luke
13:4: "Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and
slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in
Jerusalem?"
Part Two: The Marquesa de Montmayor
13 Doña María, Marquesa de
Montemayor: inspired by the seventeenth-century French aristocrat
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Sévigné who famously wrote witty and
vivid letters to her daughter Françoise-Marguerite de Sévigné, later
Comtesse de Grignan
Madame de Sévigné
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- All of Mme. de Sévigné's life was built about those wonderful
letters. On one plane they were written to regain her daughter's
affection, to attract her daughter's admiration and love. But
Mme. de Sévigné knew that her daughter merely brought an amused,
an indulgent, a faintly contemptuous appreciation. And time
after time the letter rises beyond the understanding of the
daughter and becomes an aria
where the overloaded heart sings to itself for the sheer
comfort of its felicity, sings perhaps to the daughter she might
have been. In such passages Mme. de Sévigné even defeated the
purpose of the rest of the letter, even risked drawing upon
herself her daughter's vexation and ill-humor. But sing she
must. (Thornton Wilder, "On Reading the Great Letter Writers"
1979)
- Marie de
Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Sévigné (1626–96), Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Francine du Plessix Gray, "Monument
of Mother Love," The
New York Times (1984 review of biography)
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17 for a song: not expensive
Part Three: Esteban
Part Four: Uncle Pio
Part Five: Perhaps an Intention
102 composed for his friend and
patron, the Empress of Austria: Tomás Luis de Victoria's famous
Requiem Mass, written in 1603 for the funeral of Empress Maria of
Austria
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- Tomás Luis de Victoria, "Officium defunctorum" (1605)
- Bruno Turner, "Tomás
Luis de Victoria (1548–1611) Requiem" (1987; introduction,
the performance, the composer)
- Anthony Pryer, "Victoria:
Requiem Mass, 1605" (review)
- Andy Gill, "Album:
Tenebrae, Tomás Luis De Victoria: Requiem Mass, 1605 (Signum
Classics)," The
Independent (2011 review)
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103 Kyrie: Greek for "lord,"
here meaning God; also called Kyrie eleison, meaning "Lord, have mercy," an
important prayer in Christian services; here in the story, it specifically
refers to the Kyrie part of Tomás Luis de Victoria's Requiem Mass
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- Tomas Luis de Victoria, "III.
Kyrie," Officium Defunctorum (2:31 min.)
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103 dies irae: Latin for
"day of wrath"; also a Latin hymn dated probably in the mid-13th century and
attributed to Brother Thomas of Celano, a Franciscan friar; it is commonly
sung in a Catholic funeral mass
Sources
and Inspiration
"No, I have never been to Peru
[...] Why I chose to graft my thoughts about Luke 13-4 upon a delightful
one-act play by Mérimée, Le Carosse du
Saint-Sacrement [sic], I
do not know. The Marquesa is my beloved Mme de Sévigné in a distorting
mirror. The bridge is invented, the name borrowed from one of Junipero
Serra's missions in California."
--Penelope
Niven, Thornton Wilder: A Life (New
York: Harper, 2012): 303.
Tone and Style
One comment I will make—since you have asked for it!—on the "style" of The Bridge—on the relatively
superficial aspect of the style. During the years preceding the writing of
my first two novels I had been reading intensively in the literature of the
French grand siècle. The Marquesa
de Montemayor is "after" the Marquise de Sévigné—the colors heightened in
the Spanish Colonial atmosphere. Those formal portraits with which I
introduce the principle characters are in the manner of Saint Simon and the
memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, La Rouchefoucauld, and even the portrait-making
of Saint Simon and the sermons of Bossuet and Bourdaloue. Hence the
"removed" tone, the classical, the faintly ironic distance fromt he
impassioned actions is the expression—even a borrowing—from the latin
thought world. Thence comes also the occasional resort to aphorism.
--Thornton Wilder,
To
Franz Link,
The Selected Letters
of Thornton Wilder, eds. Robin G. Wilder and Jackson R. Bryer
(New York: Harper Perennial, 2009): 536–37.
Art and Literature
Art is confession; art is the secret told. Art itself is a letter written to
an ideal mind, to a dreamed-of audience. [...] But art is not only the
desire to tell one's secret; it is the desire to tell it and to hide it at
the same time. And the secret is nothing more than the whole drama of the
inner life, the alternations between one's hope of self-improvement and
one's self-reproach at one's failures. "Out of our quarrels with other
people we make rhetoric," said William Butler Yeats; "out of our quarrels
with ourselves we make literature." Self-reproach is the first and the
continuing state of the soul. And it is the way we go about assuaging that
reproach that makes us do anything valuable.
--Thornton Wilder, "On Reading the Great
Letter Writers" (1979)
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Study Questions
- Art,
Literature
- Compare the twins'
relationship to literature to that of Uncle Pio and the
Perichole. When given a free admission to the theater
one night, "the boys did not like what they found there.
Even speech was for them a debased form of silence; how
much more futile is poetry which is a debased form of
speech. All those allusions to honor, reputation, and
the flame of love, all the metaphors about birds,
Achilles and the jewels of Ceylon were fatiguing. In the
presence of literature they had the same darkling
intelligence that stirs for a time behind the eyes of a
dog, but they sat on patiently, gazing at the bright
candles and the rich clothes" (44). How different is
this attitude and relationship from Uncle Pio's
association with literature? Notice how the Marquesa
describes him: "But
what divine Spanish he speaks and what exquisite
things he says in it! That’s what one gets by hanging
around a theatre and hearing nothing but the
conversation of Calderón" (68). Uncle Pio
"wanted to be near those that loved Spanish literature
and its masterpieces, especially in the theater" and
"was contemptuous of the great persons who for all their
education and usage, exhibited no care nor astonishment
before the miracles of word order in Calderón and
Cervantes. He longed himself to make verses" (72). Look
also at Uncle Pio's attitude toward art on pp. 79–80.
And what of the Perichole who was taught by Uncle Pio
"how to listen to the quality of her tone" (74), how to
care about taking "that speech to the prisoner so fast"
(75)? What is her relationship to literature not only
when acting but also after, when "Uncle Pio would talk
for an hour, analyzing the play, entering into a world
of finesse in matters of voice and gesture and tempo,
and often until dawn they would remain there declaiming
to one another the lordly conversation of Calderón (76)?
- Writers
and Writing
- Consider the role of
letters and letter-writing in this novel. Does
Wilder's statement that "Art itself is a letter
written to an ideal mind, to a dreamed-of audience"
have any illustration in The
Bridge of San Luis Rey? How are letters and
literature similar or different?
- Who is the narrator and
how is his design of the account of the bridge
accident different from Brother Juniper's?
- Balance
- Loss and Gain
- Wealth and Poverty
- Beauty and Ugliness
- Sadness and Joy
- Memory and Forgetfulness
- Sin and Punishment
- Surprise
- What
different meanings does the verb surprise have?
Brother Juniper's mission is described with this
expression: "And on that instant Brother Juniper made
the resolve to inquire into the secret lives of those
five persons, that moment falling through the air, and
to surprise the reason of their taking off" (7). What
is unexpected? What comes as a surprise in the novel?
Is the bridge itself coming apart a surprise in the
story? What is teased out stealthily or offered
unawares? What surprising reasons or discoveries do
you find in the novel?
- What
is the difference between learning by intention and
learning by surprise? When characters set out to find
something, do they always find it? If they don't, do
they find something else instead? Do they discover or
learn something even when they are not seeking it?
Look, for example, at Pepita's education for greatness
(29), the Marquesa and Pepita's letter (35)
- Part
One: Perhaps an Accident
- Do you think the title
"Perhaps an Accident" is a mismatch for the content that
explicitly suggests the opposite: "By a series of
coincidences so extraordinary that one almost suspects
the presence of some Intention" (6)?
- Part
Two: The Marquesa of Montemayor
- What does Pepita feel for
the Marquesa?
- Part
Three: Esteban
- When Esteban asks Captain
Alvarado for all his wages in advance, saying "I want to
buy her [Madre María] a present now. The present isn't
from me only" (62), what do you think he intends to give
her?
- Part
Four: Uncle Pio
- What does Uncle Pio's
relationship with Camila say about the connections
between criticism and art? Consider especially their
exchange in the post performance scene (pp. 75–76) and
in the villa visit scene (pp. 87–88).
- Part
Five: Perhaps an Intention
- How does material history
compare to verbal records?
- What is the function of the
case studies the narrator recounts in this section?
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Review Sheet
Characters
Narrator – "And I,
who claim to know so much more [than Brother Juniper], isn't it possible
that even I have missed the very spring within the spring?" 9
Brother Juniper –
"this little red-haired Franciscan from Northern Italy happened to be in
Peru converting the Indians and happened to witness the accident" 6
Doña María, the Marquesa –
"the daughter of a cloth-merchant who had acquired the money and the hatred
of the Limeans within a stone's-throw of the Plaza. Her childhood was
unhappy: she was ugly; she stuttered" 13; "at twenty-six she found herself
penned into marriage with a supercilious and ruined nobleman" 14; "an old
woman, her red wig fallen a little over one ear, her left cheek angry with a
leprous affection, her right with a complementary adjustment of rouge. Her
chin was never dry; her lips were never still" 14–15
Madre María del Pilar, the Abbess
– "came nearest to being their [Manuel and Esteban's] guardian" 41;
"had come to hate all men" 41; "grew to love them [Manuel and Esteban]" 41
Manuel – (elder?)
twin brother of Esteban 44; "it had always been Manuel who had made the
decisions" 63;
Esteban –
(younger?) twin brother of Manuel 44; "Esteban had scraped away the plaster
about a beam and was adjusting a rope about it" 63
Camila Perichole, the
Perichole – "the Viceroy's mistress" 45; "[Uncle Pio] discovered
Camila Perichole. Her real name was Micaela Villegas. She was singing in
cafés at the age of twelve" 73; "The long arms and legs were finally
harmonized into a body of perfect grace. The almost grotesque and hungry
face became beautiful. Her whole nature became gentle and mysterious and
oddly wise" 74; "about thirty when she left the stage" 85; "'My name is Doña
Micaela" 87
Uncle Pio – "Camila
Perichole's maid. He was also her singing-master, her coiffeur, her masseur,
her reader, her errand-boy, her banker; rumor added: her father" 68; "came
of a good Castilian house, illegitimately. At the age of ten he ran away to
Madrid" 69; "As he approached twenty, Uncle Pio came to see quite clearly
that his life had three aims. There was first his need of independence...In
the second place he wanted to be always near beautiful women...In the third
place he wanted to be near those that loved Spanish literature and its
masterpieces" 71, 72; "he was always desperately unprepossessing, with his
whisp of a moustache and his whisp of a beard and his big ridiculous sad
eyes" 72
Pepita – "Doña
María's companion" 29
Captain Alvarado –
"There was this strange and noble figure in Peru during these years, the
Captain Alvarado, the traveler" 58;
Don Andrés de Ribera,
Viceroy of Peru – lover of the Perichole 45; "the remnant of a
delightful man, broken by the table, the alcove, a grandeeship and ten years
of exile" 79
Archbishop of Lima –
"was something of a philologist" 42; "so when he heard one day about the
secret language of the twin brothers, he trimmed some quills and sent for
them" 42–43; "There was something in Lima that was wrapped up in yards of
violet satin from which protruded a great dropsical head and two fat pearly
hands; and that was its archbishop. Between the rolls of flesh that
surrounded them looked out two black eyes speaking discomfort, kindliness
and wit. A curious and eager soul was imprisoned in all this lard" 80
Doña Clara, the Condesa
d'Abuirre – daughter of Doña María 14; "took after her father; she
was cold and intellectual. At the age of eight she was calmly correcting her
mother's speech and presently regarding her with astonishment and repulsion"
14; "she regarded her friends, her servants and all the interesting people
in the capital, as her children" 15;
Don Jaime – son of
Camila and the Viceroy; "at seven years, was a rachitic little body who
seemed to have inherited not only his mother’s forehead and eyes, but his
father’s liability to convulsions. He bore his pain with the silent
bewilderment of an animal, and like an animal, he was mortally ashamed when
any evidences of it occurred in public. He was so beautiful that the more
trivial forms of pity were hushed in his presence and his long thoughts
about his difficulties had given his face a patient and startling dignity.
His mother dressed him in garnet velvet, and when he was able he followed
her about at a distance of several yards" 85
Don Rubío – 20;
Vicente – Doña
Clara's husband 31;
Setting
Place
Peru –
- Lima – "a city of eccentrics" 15
- Montemayor Palace
- balcony – "This was the old woman [Doña María] who hour by hour
would sit upon her balcony" 17; "I
have been sitting all morning on the green balcony making you a
pair of slippers, my soul" 67; "she ordered the sale of her
elegant little palace" 89
- Convent of Santa María Rosa de las Rosas – "One morning twin boys
were discovered in the foundlings' basket before the door of the
Convent of Santa María Rosa de las Rosas" 41
- Cathedral of Lima – where Doña María was married at the age of
twenty-six 14
- Cluxambuqua – "that city of large-girdled women, a tranquil town,
slow-moving and slow-smiling; a city of crystal air, cold as the springs
that fed its many fountains; a city of bells, soft and musical, and
tuned to carry on with one another the happiest quarrels. If anything
turned out for disappointment in the town of Cluxambuqua the grief was
somehow assimilated by the overwhelming immanence of the Andes and by
the weather of quiet joy that flowed in and about the sidestreets" 32
- Santa María de Cluxambuqua – "she [Doña María] made the pilgrimage
to the shrine of Santa María de Cluxambuqua" 32; "torments of the
stone [can be] (happily dissolved by drinking the water from the
springs of Santa María de Cluxambuqua)" 81
- Camila's villa – "There was a fashionable watering place in the
hills not far from Santa María de Cluxambuqua...Don Andrés...had
thought to build himself a little mock Vichy; there was a pagoda, some
drawing-rooms, a theatre, a little arena for bull-fights and some
French gardens. Camila’s health had never known a shadow, but she
built herself a villa in the vicinity and sipped the hateful waters at
eleven o’clock" 84; "As soon as she was able she had herself carried
from the city to her villa in the hills" 89
- Near Lima
Spain – "that land from which it
takes six months to receive an answer to one's letter" 14
Time
spring – "The
result of all this diligence was an enormous book, which as we shall see
later, was publicly burned on a beautiful Spring morning in the great
square" 8;
summer
July, 20, 1714
noon –
"On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru
broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." 5; "It was a
very hot noon, that fatal noon" 6
Vocabulary
irony
narrative, narration
tone
style
metaphor
simile
conceit
hyperbole, overstatement
litotes, understatement
Charater, Characterization
foil
personality
direct presentation of character
indirect presentation of character
show v. tell
consistency in character behavior
motivation
plausibility of character: is the character credible? convincing?
flat character
round character, multidimensional character
static character
developing character
direct methods of revealing character:
- characterization through the use of names
- characterization through physical appearance
- characterization through editorial comments by the author, interrupts
narrative to provide information
- characterization through dialog: what is said, who says it, under what
circumstances, who is listening, how the conversation flows, how the
speaker speaks (ex. tone, stress, dialect, diction/word choice)
- characterization through action
Plot
beginning, middle, end
scene
chance, coincidence
double plot
subplot, underplot
deus ex machina
disclosure, discovery
story
conflict, internal conflict, external conflict, clash of actions, clash of
ideas, clash of desires, clash of wills
- man v. self
- man v. man
- man v. society
- man v. nature
protagonist
antagonist
suspense
mystery
dilemma
surprise
ending
- happy ending
- unhappy ending
- indeterminate ending
artistic unity
time sequence
exposition
complication
rising action, falling action
crisis
climax
anti-climax
conclusion
resolution
denouement
flashback, retrospect
foreshadowing
Point of View
first person
second person
third person
- objective
- limited omniscient
- omniscient
narrator
voice
Sample Student
Responses to Thornton Wilder's The
Bridge of San Luis Rey
Study Question:
Response 1:
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Student Name
2202234
Introduction to the Study of English Literature
Acharn Sorn
Nangsue
June 21, 2010
Reading
Response 1
Title
Text.
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Media
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- The
Bridge of San Luis Rey, dir. Mary McGuckian,
perf. Gabriel Byrne, Robert De Niro, and Harvey Keitel
(2004)
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Reference
Wilder,
Thornton. The Bridge of San Luis Rey.
1927. Afterword by Tappan Wilder. New York: Perennial Classics, 2003.
Print.
Further Reading
Niven, Penelope. Thornton
Wilder: A Life. New York: Harper, 2012. Print.
Wilder, Thornton. Three
Plays: Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth, The Matchmaker. New York:
Harper, 1957. Print.
Wilder, Thornton. The
Cabala. New York: Modern Library, 1929. Print.
Grebanier, Bernard. Thornton
Wilder. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1964. Print.
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