In the book Mariette in Ecstasy, Rob Hansen depicts the story of an extraordinary event that occurred in a priory in upstate New York. Its depiction of life in the priory centers on the new Mariette Baptiste, the young and beautiful daughter of a local doctor, and the controversial events that threaten to tear the priory apart from within. Rob Hansen does an incredible job of placing the reader in the priory for themselves and allowing them to see what kind of lives the sisters live. On Mariette's first day, the women rise at five o'clock for a ritualized call and response, where Sister Hermance shouts, "In Jesus Christ, my sisters, let us rise!" » and the sisters respond: “May his holy name be praised! (Page 5). Women follow a rigorous and regular schedule for the rest of the day. Their lifestyle includes many complex rituals and tasks, which have been almost entirely legitimized by their repetition. The women of the priory also lead very ascetic lives, believing that hard work and simple living conditions alone can elevate one to an experience that is greater than anything that can be achieved through others. worldly goals. Mariette herself writes in prayer: “If I had to give up all the worldly pleasures of my life to gain a moment of happiness for you, I would do it without hesitation. » (Page 135). The way the sisters live their spiritual lives also has a touch of Peter Berger's idea of ​​masochism. In Mariette's conversations with Father Marriott, she said, "as I began to meditate on the crucifixion and Christ's own trials in this world, I let my thoughts carry me away and found myself before Jesus, who was suffering from such terrible pain... A reassurance. ..... middle of paper ...... common problem in theodicy. If God is good, why wouldn't He help His own disciples and keep them from going astray? Calling in a surgeon implies that the religion is not "good" or "powerful" enough, which calls into question the order of things within the priory and even the plausibility structure that has been firmly established for so long. . Ron Hansen for the most part avoids directly addressing these religious questions; instead, Mariette in Ecstasy aligns more with what Mikhail Bakhtin believes a novel is, a presentation of many perspectives. Ultimately, these two perspectives both have their own ideas of what the objective truth of the presented world is, and although Ron Hansen avoids directly presenting one side as being right, his novel does evoke the existence in more ways than one, which alone is more than many similar religious works do.