The story "The Black Madonna" by Muriel Spark explores the themes of religion, racism, and hypocrisy. It tells the story of Lou and Raymond Parker, a childless couple who put the Black Madonna statue to the test by praying for a baby but receive a black child instead. Though they invite black friends, Lou and Raymond are inwardly racist and do not want to keep the black baby. The story criticizes their false nature and hypocrisy, revealing that outward actions do not necessarily reflect inner beliefs. It stresses that all thoughts, words and deeds have consequences and urges readers to reflect deeply on any evil within themselves rather than blame others for life's difficulties.
The story "The Black Madonna" by Muriel Spark explores the themes of religion, racism, and hypocrisy. It tells the story of Lou and Raymond Parker, a childless couple who put the Black Madonna statue to the test by praying for a baby but receive a black child instead. Though they invite black friends, Lou and Raymond are inwardly racist and do not want to keep the black baby. The story criticizes their false nature and hypocrisy, revealing that outward actions do not necessarily reflect inner beliefs. It stresses that all thoughts, words and deeds have consequences and urges readers to reflect deeply on any evil within themselves rather than blame others for life's difficulties.
The story "The Black Madonna" by Muriel Spark explores the themes of religion, racism, and hypocrisy. It tells the story of Lou and Raymond Parker, a childless couple who put the Black Madonna statue to the test by praying for a baby but receive a black child instead. Though they invite black friends, Lou and Raymond are inwardly racist and do not want to keep the black baby. The story criticizes their false nature and hypocrisy, revealing that outward actions do not necessarily reflect inner beliefs. It stresses that all thoughts, words and deeds have consequences and urges readers to reflect deeply on any evil within themselves rather than blame others for life's difficulties.
The story under analysis is The Black Madonna by Muriel Spark.
The major themes of the
story are religion, racism and hypocrisy. This story shows us an example of people having a faculty of wearing masks and only when they face grief, they take these masks off and their true nature comes out. People, who think that they get away with it, are wrong because once it will be time when all their deeds will be considered. The message of the story is that all our thoughts, words, actions and wishes are valued and if they are subjectively good, it doesnt mean that we wont get our deserts. Lou and Raymond got theirs because of their false nature which will be revealed further. Lou and Raymond Parker is a childless couple with an eclectic view of making friends, who are different from each other not only in interests or professions, but also in skin colour. When they learn that the installed Black Madonna answer all the prayers, they decide to put in for a baby in order to put her to the test. They get what they come for, only the baby is black because of black ancestors in Lous family. They feel strongly against keeping the child, but in the long run decide to adopt him. The main characters of the story, Lou and Raymond are characterized indirectly through their actions, thoughts and speech. Lou is a Catholic woman, who has a biased opinion of people. This kind of quality correlates with her hypocrisy: although she invites black people and she doesnt have a thought of being a racist, inwardly she is one of them because she cant put up with her black baby. She thinks that having a black baby is a kind of curse, and then what does making friends with black people mean? In relation to her sister Lou tries to be sympathetic, but her sympathy is false, considering her sister not much of a scholar and even implying her as a black sheep of the family, she forces herself to communicate with her just because thats her sisters duty. This woman isnt a true believer, because a person who believes deeply will never doubt Gods will and in Lous case will never put the Black Madonna to the test. Her husband, Raymond, has much in common with his wife, being also a racist and hypocrite. Being in their forties, they dont want to have any children, they want to live only for themselves, which is selfish of them. The style of the story is rather straight-forward, it doesnt abound in stylistic devices. The language of the story is simple and colloquial, for example nigga. There are a lot of thematic words dealing with religion, such as presbytery, rosary, to consecrate, vestments, etc., with rearing and childbirth -private ward, adoption, cradle, maternity wing, etc. I liked the story, because it gives us food for thought: we should be careful not only in our words, but also deeds, and even if we get something bad from life we should accept it, we shouldnt blame anybody for it, but look deeper, because the evil may be inside of us.