Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder is trying to explore, with the reader, the meaning of life. Is it preordained by a divine order or is it all about learning to value life itself? Wilder explores the theme of his novel through the point-of-view of a third person, Brother Juniper who, on witnessing the collapse of the bridge of San Luis Rey and the death of five people, wonders if the event was preordained for a divine purpose or if it was simply an accident: "Some say that we shall never know and that to the Gods we are like the flies that boys kill on a summer day, and some say...that the very sparrows do not loose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God." (The Bridge of San Luis Rey, p.12)

Thus, at the very start of the book, Wilder informs the reader of his intent to explore the meaning of life. Having done so, he draws the reader into a journey to search for that meaning through Brother Juniper's research of the five lives lost, revealing through that effort all the heart ache and complications in the lives of ordinary and extraordinary people. What makes the novel a work of genius is Wilder's method of artfully provoking the reader into thinking deeply on the question he has...

The reader begins to feel the pathos in the Marquesa's loneliness especially when the realization sets in that the Marquesa is simply unable to express her real feelings in spite of all the devotion and attention. Little wonder then that the mother fails to connect with her daughter. Hope, and a sense of optimism however arise, when the narrator informs the reader that the Marquesa comes to the same self-realization: "Let me live now...let me begin anew." (Wilder, 42)
Just as the reader begins to feel that the purpose of life is to discover the meaning of love and the importance of expressing it unreservedly, Wilder raises another complication. The Marquesa is never given a chance to begin anew as she dies on the Bridge of San Luis Rey a few days later. The conflict begins again. What is the meaning of life? If the narrative is taken at face value, it all seems rather senseless, for after all, where is the point in achieving self-realization literally at the point of death? Unless, Wilder intended the reader to derive the meaning through evoking a sense of sympathy for the character…