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Doña María is a Limean noblewoman and eventual victim of the bridge collapse. Doña María’s defining quality is her obsessive devotion to her daughter, Doña Clara, a passion she channels all her energies into. Although Doña María sees her feelings as well-intentioned, the novel shows that they are actually selfish, reflecting a desire to control her daughter rather than a clear-minded concern for the girl’s well-being. Paradoxically, Doña María’s devotion proves oppressive to Doña Clara and drives her daughter away from her, preventing them from sharing a close relationship. It’s self-destructive as well—Doña María’s single-minded obsession with her daughter leads her to neglect all other aspects of her life, turning her into a prematurely aged eccentric and laughingstock across Lima. However, the letters that Doña María writes her daughter, full of witty anecdotes and social satire that she hopes will gain her daughter’s attention and respect, eventually become a highly acclaimed work of literature and record of colonial Limean society. This shows how art can help characters transcend their flaws to create works of deep beauty and understanding. Eventually, Doña María makes a pilgrimage to pray for her daughter’s health during her pregnancy; in the church, she realizes that she’ll never be able to control what happens to her daughter or how her daughter feels about her, and achieves a new feeling of tranquility. Although Doña María seems on the verge of improving her character and leading a better life, she dies in the bridge collapse the next day, unable to pursue her good intentions.
Doña María Quotes in The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The The Bridge of San Luis Rey quotes below are all either spoken by Doña María or refer to Doña María. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Part 2: The Marquesa de Montemayor
Quotes
But her biographers have erred in one direction as greatly as the Franciscan did in another; they have tried to invest her with a host of graces, to read back into her life and person some of the beauties that abound in her letters, whereas all real knowledge of this wonderful woman must proceed from the act of humiliating her and divesting her of all beauties save one.
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At times, after a day’s frantic resort to such invocations, a revulsion would sweep over her. Nature is deaf. God is indifferent. Nothing in man’s power can alter the course of law. Then on some street-corner she would stop, dizzy with despair, and lean against a wall would long to be taken from a world that had no plan in it.
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She was listening to the new tide of resignation that was rising within her. Perhaps she would learn in time to permit both her daughter and her gods to govern their own affairs.
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She had never brought courage to either life or love. Her eyes ransacked her heart. She thought of the amulets and her beads, her drunkenness […] she thought of her daughter. She remembered the long relationship, crowded with the wreckage of exhumed conversations, of fancied slights, of inopportune confidences […].
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Doña María Quotes in The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The The Bridge of San Luis Rey quotes below are all either spoken by Doña María or refer to Doña María. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 2: The Marquesa de Montemayor
Quotes
But her biographers have erred in one direction as greatly as the Franciscan did in another; they have tried to invest her with a host of graces, to read back into her life and person some of the beauties that abound in her letters, whereas all real knowledge of this wonderful woman must proceed from the act of humiliating her and divesting her of all beauties save one.
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At times, after a day’s frantic resort to such invocations, a revulsion would sweep over her. Nature is deaf. God is indifferent. Nothing in man’s power can alter the course of law. Then on some street-corner she would stop, dizzy with despair, and lean against a wall would long to be taken from a world that had no plan in it.
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She was listening to the new tide of resignation that was rising within her. Perhaps she would learn in time to permit both her daughter and her gods to govern their own affairs.
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She had never brought courage to either life or love. Her eyes ransacked her heart. She thought of the amulets and her beads, her drunkenness […] she thought of her daughter. She remembered the long relationship, crowded with the wreckage of exhumed conversations, of fancied slights, of inopportune confidences […].
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