Question

A major theme that runs through Thornton Wilder’s work is how people move on from catastrophic loss. In The Bridge of San Luis Rey, two characters in particular – Brother Juniper, and the Abbess – focus on surviving loss in very different ways. How do you characterize their approaches – and what is your own take-away from Wilder’s novel?

Answer 1

The first few pages of The Bridge of San Luis Rey describes the book’s essential premise: this article focuses on an event which took place in Lima, Peru, at noon on Friday, June 12, 1714. This bridge was constructed by the Incas, who got collapsed when five people were crossing over it. Brother Juniper, a Franciscan monk was on his way to cross the bridge witnessed this natural destruction.

Inquisitive about the fact that why God would allow such a catastrophe, he determines to adopt a scientific approach to this question. He interviewed everyone he can find who may know the five victims.

Brother Juniper worked for six years about the bridge collapse and tried to devise various mathematical formulae to measure the spiritual attributes, but he could not find any results. He compiles his huge book of records, but a council pronounces his work as the prejudice, and they burned the book and Brother Juniper in the town square.

After witnessing such collapse of the bridge, Brother Juniper does not want to leave on any sort of quest and want to find the substantial causes which will help to explain about this structure which has been stood for thousands of years.

He took such the tragedy as a part of life, like syndrome and old age. Instead of dealing with physics, which is not his field of expertise, Brother Juniper opted for the theological approach. It determines him to use scientific methods to understand God’s will. Because the bridge collapse is such a mutant incident with a few victims, he saw such events as the rare opportunity through which he can conduct his study with a practicable sampling.

Another part of the novel involves the Abbess, head of the Convent Santa Maria Rosa, who had given the descriptions of two victims of the bridge collapse. The narration also refers to her as "the strange genius of Lima." This description involves two people who were collapsed during this tragedy was raised by Abbess.

The Abbess raises the orphan Pepita and gave her a chance for education by sending her to the Marquesa de Montemayor. She also raised the twins, Manuel and Esteban. The incidence of bridge collapse killed Pepita and Esteban, which left the Abbess very depressed. She has lost two of her favorite people and was very sad about thinking that when she will be also dead, then there will be no one to manage the content and care for the poor.
By the conclusion, we can understand that
the novel tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope bridge in Peru and the events that lead up to their being on the bridge. Both the character of the Novel Brother Juniper and Abbess was depressed due to the collapse of the bridge, and Abbess lost her loved ones whom she raised. Whereas the other character Brother Juniper witnessed the loss of the lives of five people. He was inquisitive about such events and wanted to understand the natural phenomena which narrate such sort of causalities.