Hope for the Drowned: Baptism, Faith, and the Open Community of Grace in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping and Lila

Author

• MacKenzie M. MillerFollow

Year of Award

2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

Master of Arts (MA)

Degree Name

English (Literature)

Committee Chair

Dr. Robert Baker

Commitee Members

Dr. Brady Harrison, Dr. Paul Muench

Keywords

Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping, Lila, religion and literature, Christianity, bapitsm

Subject Categories

American Literature | Christianity | Literature in English, North America

Abstract

This thesis explores the baptismal imagery across two of Marilynne Robinson’s novels, Housekeeping and Lila. The hermeneutic used to understand baptism is based on some of the works of Rowan Williams, Mircea Eliade, and Northrop Frye. In its death and rebirth function, baptism is understood for its connection to the formation of self and identity. Baptism is also explored as a means of community initiation. Further, connecting these two baptismal functions, this thesis also looks at the role community plays in the formation of that identity. In this process, I compare Housekeeping’s Ruth and Lila’s titular character; while the two young women have many similarities, the difference between their final vision of resurrected communities, and the faith they hold in their respective visions, is truly what drives this thesis. Chapter One focuses on Ruth’s tendency to associate water with death and argues that Housekeeping’s relationship to baptism’s promises—the restoration of relationships and the formation of a new self—can only be understood as ambiguous; the fulfillment of Ruth’s faith in resurrection is ultimately uncertain. Chapter Two reads Lila through the image of community it sets up at the very end of the novel. In contrast to the grim implications of Housekeeping’s end, Lila pictures a possible resurrection defined by a radically open definition of community, where identity is retained and relationships are restored, all of which is made possible by her faith in the powers of creative grace, her imaginative natural theology, and the possibility of change.

Recommended Citation

Miller, MacKenzie M., "Hope for the Drowned: Baptism, Faith, and the Open Community of Grace in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping and Lila" (2026). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 12648.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/12648