CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Ten – The Modern Period (1900 – present)
Lesson 10.2 – The Modern Secular World: The Struggle to Convert - Edna O’Brien,
“Sister Imelda”
Overview:
In this lesson, we continue our study of conversion, which we began with T.S. Eliot’s
“Journey of the Magi.” Here, though, we move to Ireland and to the mid-twentieth century. “Sister
Imelda” is a short story, which enables the subject to be treated at greater length, with a fully
developed (modern, urban) setting, a cast of interconnected characters, a plot conflict, and a
resolution. The central strand of the story is the decision facing the unnamed narrator: a young girl
graduating from a convent school who, while initially determined to enter religious life as a nun,
suddenly (and seemingly inexplicably) changes her mind and pursues a secular life. Years later, we
see her as an unhappy woman, pursuing rather shallow goals, including the importance of fashion
and social popularity. As the story concludes, we are invited to consider whether why made the
wrong choice in refusing to follow the life that Sister Imelda exemplifies, and whether the young
girl makes that realization (too late), too.
Objectives:



To examine, again, the question of conversion: its difficulty in a modern, secular world
To consider a different treatment of that subject by a woman author who depicts midtwentieth century Ireland
To read our first short story, thinking about how that genre enables a different literary
treatment of conversion, through character and plot development
Readings:
“Sister Imelda”
(course pack)
Lesson 10.2 – The Modern Secular World: Struggle to Convert - Edna O’Brien, “Sister Imelda”
©Continuing & Distance Education, St. Francis Xavier University - 2012
1
CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Ten – The Modern Period (1900 – present)
10.2.1. Monastic (and Convent) Life
The word monastic comes from two Greek words: monos (alone) and koinos (common).
Monastic life is both a withdrawal from the world, for a contemplative existence, and a commitment
to live in community with the other members of a religious order. A monastery is a religious
community of men, or monks; a convent is religious community of women, or nuns. In either case,
monastic life is disciplined: it requires that one adhere to vows of chastity, poverty and obedience
(to the monastic rule and to God). It also entails a “vow of stability,” as Trappist monk Thomas
Merton defines it, in which one relinquishes restless travel—even the desire to “wander about
freely outside the monastic enclosure”—for spiritual rootedness in one place.
Earlier in the course, we studied the Desert Fathers (200 – 400 AD), who were the first
(hermits and) monks in the Early Christian period, modelling their withdrawal from urban centres
to the Egyptian desert on Jesus’ own practice of seeking solitude and silence for prayer; Jesus, of
course, called on his disciples to do the same. While the Desert Fathers went apart from the world
in a very radical and austere way—in a manner that few of us could replicate—the exemplary
Christian lives that they upheld (many of them were later canonized as saints) formed the basis of
monasticism as it developed in Western Europe in subsequent centuries. By the 8th and 9th
centuries, monasteries became havens of peace, safety, culture, education and trade, often serving
as a focal point around which villages and towns grew.
However, the setting for our story is not a monastery, or a convent, but a convent school: a
school that educates young people within a religious community. The school in this story is a
secondary institution, in Dublin, Ireland. The girls live at the convent school, with the nuns, for the
academic year, go home to their families each summer, and graduate at the end of what we would
call their “high school” education. Some of the girls at such a school would choose to enter the
religious order as nuns, a vocation that the narrator of our story comes very close to following, until
she quickly (and seemingly without explanation) goes to university instead. The story takes us
back to an era (Ireland in the 1940s) when choosing convent life as a vocation was still common for
women: it was a favourable option, alongside the other alternatives of university, employment, and
marriage. Today, we have lost sight of that formerly flourishing way of life for young women.
The convent school setting is described in detail, illuminating how the girls are taught to
abide by the disciplined life that the nuns lead. While they find that rather austere, and are quick to
complain about the bad food and seemingly rigorous rules, readers can also detect some of the
contentment that the nuns experience precisely because they are removed from the complications
of secular life. They exemplify a kind of happiness that is offered to the young girls, if they desire to
pursue it.
Lesson 10.2 – The Modern Secular World: Struggle to Convert - Edna O’Brien, “Sister Imelda”
©Continuing & Distance Education, St. Francis Xavier University - 2012
2
CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Ten – The Modern Period (1900 – present)
Biography: Edna O’Brien (1932 - ) is an Irish
writer, originally from County Clare and now
living in London. This story is autobiographical
in that it arises from her own experience as a
young girl attending a convent school,
established by the Sisters of Mercy in Loughrea,
Ireland. Although the story was written in
1981, its setting is the 1940s. O’Brien has
written many novels and collections of short
fiction.
Her primary focus is women,
particularly their experiences of loneliness,
suffering, and the complexities of love.
Edna O’Brien, (The Independent, Feb. 11, 2011)
The Sisters of Mercy was founded by
Irish woman Catherine McAuley in 1831. Catherine used a sizeable inheritance to establish a house
for the poor in the centre of Dublin and gathered around her a group of dedicated women who
would eventually become the first Sisters of Mercy. The Sisters, who became known as the walking
nuns, left their convent to visit prisons, hospitals and homes. As nurses, social workers and teachers
they provided care, compassion, solace and inspiration.
Clonfert Abbey, Loughrea
The Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy
Sister Catherine McAuley, The Mercy Community
Lesson 10.2 – The Modern Secular World: Struggle to Convert - Edna O’Brien, “Sister Imelda”
©Continuing & Distance Education, St. Francis Xavier University - 2012
3
CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Ten – The Modern Period (1900 – present)
In Loughrea, where Edna O’Brien attended a convent school, the Sisters of Mercy arrived in 1851,
following the ravages of the famine of 1847. They attended to the poor and the sick, especially in
hospitals, which were crowded with poor sufferers as a result of the famine. An orphanage was
opened in 1862 followed by an Industrial School in 1864. In 1917, they established their first
Secondary School.
Reading: “Sister Imelda” (course pack)
10.2.2. Literary Analysis and Study Questions
1. Setting

While written in 1981, long after Edna O’Brien left Ireland for London in 1959, the story is
set in Dublin in the 1940s, when she was attending a convent school. This era in Ireland is
very different from our own: girls were still often educated in convent schools and many
chose to pursue religious life as a nun after graduating. Sadly, that religious vocation is no
longer as attractive to most young people; religious orders are declining in numbers and the
existing members are becoming elderly. O’Brien captures and preserves that era, helping us
to understand what it meant for young women to choose between religious and secular life.
That choice is the heart of the dilemma for the story’s main character, the girl narrator.

The setting concerns not only that decade in Ireland but also the more specific milieu of the
convent school itself. Life inside its walls is described in detail: the food, hours for prayer,
clothing, beds, curtainless windows, chilly temperatures, censuring of letters, high academic
standards, and minimal bathing opportunities, for instance. Notice how, when the girls
return after summer of Christmas holidays, they find these conditions too austere and
complain about the intolerable deprivation. They feel “imprisoned.” Once they adjust,
however, they more readily find happiness. That movement between inside and outside is
significant: the more one visits the outside world (its comforts and temptations), the more
one is dissatisfied with the religious life within. Notice how the contrast between the two
worlds is conveyed as the girls come and go each term. The story helps us to understand
why monks and nuns stay cloistered: here, they remain undistracted by worldly concerns
and focused, instead, on God. When opened to the secular world, religious life becomes
fragile. Perhaps, that explains why, during her summer vacation, the narrator chooses not to
return to the convent to become a nun, as she promised on her departure.

Also related to setting is time: in this case, a school year, from autumn to the following
summer. The narrator and her friend Baba are completing their fifth year, at which point
Lesson 10.2 – The Modern Secular World: Struggle to Convert - Edna O’Brien, “Sister Imelda”
©Continuing & Distance Education, St. Francis Xavier University - 2012
4
CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Ten – The Modern Period (1900 – present)
they will graduate. Think about the seasons: the cycle of the year parallels their lives, in
some ways. In winter, the harshness of life is accentuated, in physical and spiritual terms:
cold, damp living; the rigors of studying; the narrator’s indecision about her future; the
wavering relationship between her and Sister Imelda. By summer, though, as warmth and
fruitfulness return in nature, the narrator is excited, having determined “to enter the
convent in September,” even wanting to “become a nun that minute,” if she could. This is
how we expect the story to conclude: in happy fulfillment of her desire, as an extension of
her parting (summertime) joy. Surprisingly, though, this is not the outcome. The plot turns,
and we grapple to understand its meaning.
2. Character
 Sister Imelda: She is the principal character, as the title suggests. We learn much about her.
At the same time, she is difficult for us to know fully. Think about both the aspects that are
revealed and those that remain mysterious. Can we expect to know a nun fully? Is that
religious life, by its nature, too hidden from our (outside, secular) access.
o How is she described?
o How is she different from the other nuns?
o Why does her mood change, at times, often quite quickly?
o Is she happy? unhappy?
o What is her relationship to the outside world?

Baba: The narrator’s closest friend is a stark contrast to Sister Imelda. She is uninterested in
holy life and criticizes all aspects of the convent school, impatient to “escape” during holiday
times. She is not complex and somewhat mysterious, like Sister Imelda (a round character),
but predictable and inflexible in her views (a flat character).
o What does she criticize about the school? Why?
o What is her influence on the narrator? Is it negative? positive?
o Is she an appealing or unappealing character?

Narrator: In some ways, she is just a typical student at the school, like all of the young girls.
However, like Sister Imelda, she is also set apart from the others, as someone special and
different. In literature, complex characters, rather than predictable ones, most intrigue us.
We call them round, rather than flat, characters: they grow, develop, change, surprise us, and
seemingly escape our full comprehension, just like human beings.
o In what ways is this girl a typical student like the others?
o In what ways is she different?
o Is she attracted to convent life? Why? How do we know?
o What tension does she experience inside herself?
Lesson 10.2 – The Modern Secular World: Struggle to Convert - Edna O’Brien, “Sister Imelda”
©Continuing & Distance Education, St. Francis Xavier University - 2012
5
CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Ten – The Modern Period (1900 – present)


If Sister Imelda is one dear friend to her, who is the other (more conventional)
friend? Are the two people quite different?
Relationships Between Them
o Sister Imelda and the narrator develop a very deep and intimate friendship.
 How is that conveyed?
 Do we understand why they are attracted to each other?
o Baba and the narrator have a long-standing friendship, too.
 How does this friendship differ?
 What connects them as friends? Does it offer something that her relationship
with Sister Imelda does not?
o Is the narrator caught between the two women? Does she choose one over the other?
Does her choice change?
3. Plot
 Rising action: The principal sequence of events—the plot’s complication—concerns the
narrator’s dilemma: her attraction to convent life, which increasingly gives her great
happiness, and her ties to life in the secular world. Which will she pursue? This tension
inside her creates the story’s central conflict. The conflict is also revealed by the two
opposing characters, both of whom influence her: Sister Imelda and Baba.

Climax: The turning point is the moment when the narrator chooses (during the summer
after her graduation) to go to university in September and to break her spoken promise to
enter the convent. She does not communicate with Sister Imelda. Her change of heart is not
explained, and the summer months are not described. Her decision puzzles us.
o What do you think: what is the reason behind her changed attitude?
 Is her friendship with Baba a factor?
 Is time away from the convent, during summer, a factor?

Resolution: Two years later, we see the narrator and Baba, again. Both are on a bus, during
an outing to an exclusive golf club. Their appearance has changed considerably, reflecting a
concern now for bodily image (makeup and men). They appear rather artificial and
cosmetic. The story concludes with the narrator’s decision not to speak to Sister Imelda, who
is travelling on the same bus. The resolution, too, seems somewhat inconclusive, leaving us
with more questions than answers.
Lesson 10.2 – The Modern Secular World: Struggle to Convert - Edna O’Brien, “Sister Imelda”
©Continuing & Distance Education, St. Francis Xavier University - 2012
6
CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Ten – The Modern Period (1900 – present)
o What is different about the narrator? What is distasteful about her new way of life?
Are we saddened by her new values?
o Do we understand why she alters so radically? Can we draw on our own experience
of modern secular life to make sense of her alteration?
o Does she regret her choice? Is she happy? Is she being true to herself?
 As readers, we see, I think, that her friend Baba is a poor substitute for Sister
Imelda, as a friend and mentor: Baba is not good or deep enough for her.
Earlier, we witnessed the narrator’s spiritual joy, and a desire for a religious
vocation. Now, her life, it seems, will have emptiness.
 Do you think she has made the right choice?
o Does Sister Imelda see her? Would she even recognize her, now that she is so
changed? Even if she does see her, perhaps, as a nun, she is able to cultivate an inner
peace that confirms her choice to live apart and not to be bothered by worldly human
frailties and disappointments in friendship.
 She and her companion are described almost like birds, as they leave the bus,
“being blown wildly about in the wind.” This image suggests that they are
natural and free, while the narrator and Baba are artificial, now, and
imprisoned by worldly desires. The convent, then, isn’t the prison, after all;
the outside world is in its false assumptions that young women (and all of us)
must acquire beauty and money to be happy.
4. Themes
 The story raises a number of interesting thematic strands. What is it saying about each?
o religious life and its fragility in a secular world
o female friendship (and loneliness)
o the temptations of worldly existence
o happiness: its truest source

What other themes does the story present?
10.2.3. Questions for Blackboard Discussion
The family of Sister Saint-Alphonse, born Marie-Louise-Émilie Pelletier (1816-1843),
commissioned this portrait two years after she had taken her solemn vows at the cloister of the
Hôpital-Général in Quebec City. Marie-Louise Emilie Pelletier grew up in Quebec City’s high society
in 1816. She was the daughter of Pierre Pelletier, a wealthy merchant, and Marie Morin. Against
her father’s wishes, she turned away from her comfortable life and chose to become a nun.
Lesson 10.2 – The Modern Secular World: Struggle to Convert - Edna O’Brien, “Sister Imelda”
©Continuing & Distance Education, St. Francis Xavier University - 2012
7
CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Ten – The Modern Period (1900 – present)
1. To learn more about the painting, go the National Gallery of Canada website and click on
“audioguide.”
http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artwork.php?mkey=9484.
Soeur Saint-Alphonse
Antoine Plamandon (1841)
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
2. Now, look carefully at the painting, again. How does the artist convey this woman’s serenity
and holiness and happiness as a nun?
Lesson 10.2 – The Modern Secular World: Struggle to Convert - Edna O’Brien, “Sister Imelda”
©Continuing & Distance Education, St. Francis Xavier University - 2012
8
CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Ten – The Modern Period (1900 – present)

Notice, for example, that her Bible is partially open, with her finger marking her page:
it seems as though she has stopped her reading to contemplate and to experience God
in a deep, thoughtful way.

Her eyes, while not closed, are not looking directly at anything. She is not distracted
by the world. Instead, she is absorbed in her thoughts, as she contemplates with
complete contentment.

Her beauty, too, suggests that, inside, she is happy: God is all that she needs. Her
possessions are few, and the colours of her clothing are reduced to black and white,
suggesting the austerity and simplicity of her life; still, she seems to lack nothing.

The artist’s hints of red—in the chair, Bible, her lips and cheeks—suggest passion
inside her: passion for God. The white, in contrast, indicates her purity.

The gold light behind her head is like an enlarged halo, marking her holiness.

Her cross hangs at the centre of her body, in full light, and just above her Bible. It is
the essence of her existence.
3. Now, using Blackboard, discuss with the class your views:
 Why is the life of a nun, portrayed so beautifully and peacefully here, no longer
attractive to women? Why do so few women enter religious orders now? (Likewise,
fewer and fewer men enter monasteries.) What are the causes of that change? Sister
Imelda’s life, like that of Sister Saint-Alphonse, is portrayed in positive terms. Why,
then, has it become a tradition from the past?

Is this a lamentable change? Are we losing these exemplary models of Christian life?
What will happen to convents and monasteries in the future?
Lesson 10.2 – The Modern Secular World: Struggle to Convert - Edna O’Brien, “Sister Imelda”
©Continuing & Distance Education, St. Francis Xavier University - 2012
9