"The Bridge of San Luis Rey"
by Thorton Wilder

      When the monk Paulinus journeyed to northern England in 627 he asked King Edwin to convert the English people to Christianity. Debate ensued among Edwin's counselors as to whether this was the right course of action. After days of debate, one of Edwin's counselors arose and presented this insight to the monarch: "Your majesty, on a winter night like this, it sometimes happens that a little bird flies in that far window, to enjoy the warmth and light of our fire. After a short while it passes out again, returning to the dark and cold. As I see it, our human life is much the same. We have but a brief time between the two great darkness. If this monk can show us warmth and light, we should follow him." Fifteen hundred years later, Thorton Wilder, in his novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey -- a novel examining themes of fate and love -- plays the role of Paulinus and poignantly reveals to us warmth and light in a world without divine plan or purpose.

      Wilder's novel begins with the collapse of the bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the finest bridges in all of Peru. The collapse of the bridge shocks the Peruvians and happens to be witnessed by a tiny Franciscan monk, Brother Juniper, who seeks to discern meaning and purpose in the accident. According to the narrator of the story, Brother Juniper spends years investigating the lives of those who perished in the tragedy. The question which drives his search is why did those five perish in the accident; why were they singled out to die on that particular day, in that particular way. Theologically, for Juniper, there must be a reason, a purpose for why the event happened. Either God governs the universe according to a divine plan or the collapse of the bridge is meaningless phenomenon and the universe is without divine purpose. It is this either-or proposition Juniper seeks to resolve through an "objective" analysis.

      Wilder then spends the rest of the novel examining the complex relationships between the characters. Each relationship is a story within a story. There is the story of The Marquesa de Montemayor and her daughter, The Condesa d'Abuirre; of Manuel and Esteban; of Madre Maria and Pepita, of the Camila and Uncle Pio. What characterizes each of these relationships is the inability to relate and love without agenda or ulterior motive. Madre Maria's interaction with Pepita, for instance, is mediated by the little girl's potential to carry on the work of the orphanage once Madre Maria has passed away. This failure to love also concerns love of the self. We read of the great actress Camila acquiring small-pox and having her beauty blemished because of the disease. Camila's mentor, Uncle Pio -- himself having loved her inadequately as he pushed her to become a successful actress --continues to love her as a father would love a daughter, but Camila rejects his love because she can not believe any one would love her for who she is. Camila perceives the affection show by Uncle Pio as self-pitying and condescending.

      Once the bridge of San Luis Rey collapses there is intensive soul searching among those characters who are still alive. The Condesa, Camila, Madre Maria, realize they have loved imperfectly and seek to make amends for their actions. Camila joins Maria's religious order which serves the poor; and Maria comes to the realization that her work, in and of itself, the work in which she gives of her self in love, the work in which she spreads warmth and light, is all that is needed. She need not concern herself about its continuation. She simply needs to continue her ministry. As for The Condesa, her future is more ambiguous, but one certainly sees a change of heart by her return to Peru after her mother's death. One comes away with the impression that she realizes that her egotistical isolation from her mother cost her dearly. And that she is intent on changing the way she lives.

      Wilder, while eloquently and profoundly examining the theme of love, also explores the theme of theodicy. Brother Juniper, at the end of his investigations, concludes that there is no reason for the death of the five. They did nothing to warrant their fate. Juniper's arrives at a similar conclusion when he investigates a pestilence which befell the village of Puerto . From his investigations, he discovers that evil befell those who were good and valued members of the community while those who were less than perfect lived. There is no plan or purpose to determine who lives or dies. Life and death are determined by chance. And for this insight, Brother Juniper is burned at the stake.

      Thus, in Wilder's scheme of the universe, we see that there is neither providence nor purpose governing the affairs of men and women. The universe is an empty place, devoid of extra-mundane significance (the author of the Bridge undoubtedly is articulating a sentiment felt by many of his contemporaries after the Great War, which arbitrarily claimed the lives of millions). For Wilder, human life is fragile, and is often ended by the capricious whim of fate. All of humanity, in a sense, dangles above the gorge of the San Luis river. Our life can be cut short at a moments notice, for no apparent reason. God, in Wilder's vision, is absent from the universe. Good befalls the evil just as evil befalls the good. How many times do we see the innocent suffering at the hands of the strong and corrupt? Can we really justify all of the evil we see in the context of a divine plan?

      Since there is no divine plan organizing and sustaining life, death, for Wilder, possesses no meaning. Death is an empty phenomenon. There is no resurrection of the body and life everlasting to justify the premature termination of one's existence. Death, however, when seen in the context of life (and this point becomes apparent in the scene with Madre Maria and The Condsa), especially a life that is dedicated to the love and service of others, suddenly makes sense. Death is meaningful if life is lived well in the here and now. There is no other worldly transformation to give meaning to life. The only meaning we can hope to derive from our earthly existence results from the acts of love we share with other people. Life, not death, possesses meaning. It is meaningful when we give of ourselves in love, when we put love where there is not love, when we illuminate the darkness of suffering with the light of love.

      To extricate ourselves from our egotistical solitude, to give of ourselves in love, is the point of living and is all that will endure after we have died. Everything else we do will be forgotten. Time moves on. Memory is erased. Our love, though, is what will link us to the living. If the bridge of San Luis Rey takes the living away from the living, it is the bridge of love which connects the living and the dead.

      Wilder ends his novel on a note of ambivalent hope. Although the world is not governed by an omniscient and omnipresent God, we can still find meaning in the world. We possess both the freedom and the ability to chose how we want to live. Those of us remaining the land of the living need to take advantage of our opportunities to love while they are still available to us. Because the opportunity to love can be taken from us every so quickly. Love is what binds us together in life. Love is what will bind us to those whom we have loved; to those whom the great source of love has re-claimed. Love will be our legacy if we chose to share it with humanity. And we don't need to worry about being effective or efficient. We don't even need to worry about our legacy. We simply need to work and love.

      Like Paulinus, Wilder suggests sources of warmth and light that give meaning to life. Like Paulinius, Wilder suggests a meaning to embrace between the two great darkness. A world without a providential God is a world filled with uncertainty but it is a world that can be filled with meaning. Although we can not count on God to guide all of our actions and the events which effect our lives, we do possess the capacity to create lives of love, warmth, and light. Ironically, fate gives human beings the opportunity, however tenuous, to right what is wrong, to heal what is broken, to act rightly even though much of what we see in the world is wrong. Moreover, a world without God places the onus on human beings to act morally and justly. We can blame God neither for the good or the bad which happens in life. It is us who must act as responsible, mature people.