The Bridge Of San Luis Rey Essay

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What is love? Love is defined as an intense feeling of deep affection. The bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder we learn what love means to multiple individuals and we also learn about human relationships. This book is about the collapse of the bridge of San Luis Rey while five people were crossing it. The purpose of this book was to show that this moment was gods plan. In this book all the characters have negative connotations of love but in their journey they learn. Their idea of love becomes more postive and they are more accepting towards it.
Dona Maria is the marquesa of Montemayor. Marquesa defines pure love as not being possible. ”She refused to believe that anyone(herself excepted)loved anyone.”(16) Marquesa struggles to find and maintain a lasting companionship because she is secluded due to her childhood. Her love “necessary was it to her love that she attract attention, perhaps admiration, of her distant child.”(14) The valuable lessson that Marquesa learns about human relationships is that …show more content…

Esteban defines love as “the tacid almost ashamed oneness of these brothers.”(45) He describes it as knowing all things and as complete loyalty. Esteban struggles to find and maintain a lasting companionship because he is used to his brother. Also because a shadow cast by the love of women fell across this unity. He discovered that he and his brother are not the same. The difference is that “There was no room in his imagination for a new loyalty, not because his heart was less large than Manuels, but because it was of a simpler texture.”(48) In other words “It was merely that in the heart of one of them there was left room for an elaborate imaginative attachment and in the heart of the other there was not.” (53) The valuable lessson that Esteban learns about human relationships is that one person in a relationship loves less profoundly than another. He also learned that love survives death and that you must push

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