Two days later she and Pepita die on the bridge….

The Marquesa's wonderful letters are now her only way of showing her affection, but through her companion, the child Pepita, the Marquesa discovers she has not had true love for Clara and decides to reform. The Marquesa de Montemayor has devoted her life to her daughter Clara, a bril-liant, selfish woman who goes to Spain after her marriage. He and his book are burned at the stake, but a copy survives, and from it comes these stories of the five who fell with the bridge…. He collects the results of his six years of investigation in a great book, which is pronounced heretical. Brother Juniper, a Franciscan, resolves to help place theology “among the exact sciences” by proving the catastrophe to be an act of divine providence. Novel by Thornton Wilder, published in 1927 and awarded a Pulitzer Prize.In 1714 a bridge over a canyon near Lima, Peru, collapses, and five travelers are killed. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).ĭate: Bridge of San Luis Rey, The, Source: The Oxford Companion to American Literature Author(s): James D. As they cross the bridge from the Perichole’s house into Lima, they are both swept up in the collapse and die.PRINTED FROM OXFORD REFERENCE ((c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2023. In a gesture of goodwill, Uncle Pio decides to take the Perichole’s eldest son, Jaime, to live with him while his mother recovers. While Uncle Pio often seems like an unscrupulous opportunist, he reveals his integrity by single-handedly caring for the Perichole after she contracts smallpox, loses her social position and beauty, and even tries to push him away. The Perichole shares Uncle Pio’s clever nature, cultural awareness, and ability to navigate the city’s elite despite their lowly origins however, the master is distinguished from his pupil by his indifference to wealth or social success, whereas the Perichole comes to crave these things. Eventually, he moves to Lima, where his passion for theater leads him to adopt the young Camila Perichole and train her as an actress.

During this time, he develops a passion for Spanish theater, which he believes represents the world’s highest culture. Born out of wedlock to a wealthy Spanish nobleman, Uncle Pio spends his childhood on the streets of Madrid, where he does errands and tasks for various people in the city’s seedy underbelly. Uncle Pio is Camila Perichole’s acting coach and assistant, a cunning, intelligent, and highly cultured jack-of-all-trades.

The bridge of saint luis rey