Burial Rites By Hannah Glaspell Quotes

Hannah Kent’s speculative novel “Burial Rites” explores the journey of Agnes Magnusdottir, the last person to be executed in Iceland and her struggle to fit into society. Amidst the populace, Agnes is caged by labels that prevent her from attaining a sense of belonging. Through blending narrative perspectives, use of motifs to portray Agnes’ emotional recount, Kent exposes the dominating nature of Agnes’ belonging over rejection in the brutal 19th century Iceland where “how other people think of you determines who you are.” While societal and patriarchal discrimination stripped Agnes of her voice and her version of the truth, Agnes is granted an “audience to her life's lonely narrative” where her truth is accepted thus finding belonging. Furthermore,

Through the death of Natan Ketilsson, Agnes’ sense of identity is fragmented by her status as a ‘murderess’. The notion that Agnes is now seen as 'an inhumane witch, stirring up murder' reveals her inability to reconcile her identity within society. Kent exemplifies society’s misperception of Agnes through the appearance of Rosa, deeming her as an outsider. Agnes is misperceived by the crowd gathered around her as the “Fjandi! Devil”, as she feels the ‘comfort’ of Rosa, ‘someone [she] recognised’. That presenting Rosa’s disappearance at the remark of the crowd, the only person she could recognise, Kent implies that society has ultimately betrayed Agnes at the cause of their own portrayals of her. Furthermore, her description of being “too clever” is not favourably looked upon by society. Even Agnes believes that society withholds their pity and acceptance of her. As though the presence of knowing her to be “too smart”, she deviates from the common role as a female, representing something unordinary, witch-like, as they say; “...a thinking woman cannot be trusted”. This proposition amongst other depictions inevitably leads to Agnes inability to belong in

Kent ingrained Agnes’ feature of a hollow palm to symbolise an ‘empty space’ that she resides in, a state of non-acceptance in society. Metaphorically, through the conception of the hollow palm as suggested by Natan, she can only attain that space through their inseparability, ‘by covering it’ with his own hands. Being ‘offered...friendship’ she conceals herself further from ‘the world’ and society and clings onto him as ‘[they’re] the same kind’. In spite of this new hope, Natan alleviates their future and ‘becomes more of a stranger’ to her. His love for her oscillates and eventually dries up at the company of Sigga. Although initially he ‘made [her] feel [she] was enough’ and would ‘haul [her] out of her ‘loveless life,’ ‘all that while, there was Sigga.’ That the conception of her struggle to belong is near but not yet complete reveals Agnes’ ultimate struggle to fit in, even with her true love