Cutting for Stone

St. Teresa de Avila, specifically Bernini’s sculpture The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, appears as a motif throughout the novel. When Marion is young, he finds comfort at his mother’s desk, with the framed picture of Bernini’s sculpture as its only decoration. Without any memory of his mother, St. Teresa becomes deeply intertwined with Sister in his mind: “Without photographs of her to go by, I couldn’t help but imagine that the woman in the picture was my mother, threatened and about to be ravished by the spear-wielding boy-angel” (5). When Marion leaves Missing, he takes the print and carries it for 20 years, bringing his mother along on his travels. Upon discovering his mother’s letter behind the frame, this connection between her and St. Teresa becomes even more concrete.

At the end of the novel, this connection deepens when Hema and Marion visit the actual sculpture in Rome, which Marion feels is akin to seeing his mother “in the flesh” (647). At this moment, Marion “felt a great peace, a sense that coming to this spot had completed the circuit, and now a blocked current would flow and I could rest” (648). In the end, seeing St. Teresa allows Marion to be at peace with his mother’s death and put the last of his uncertainty about the past to rest.