Analysis: concepts, methods, and applications

¶ … Wife

Determining the Meaning(s) of Good: The Human and the Divine in Kristine Batey's "Lot's Wife"

The Bible is, in addition to and in large part because of its role as a religious text for the so-called "Western" religions, one of the foundational works of Western literature, serving as a source of inspiration, symbolism, and allegory in direct and indirect ways for writers of every era following its adoption by Rome. Philosophers, politicians, poets, novelists, and writers and thinkers of all stripes have found the stories, characters, and apparent conclusions of the Bible to be a source of undying inspection, examination, and ultimately of cultural reference, enabling deeper and more direct insights to be achieved and presented to the reader through the common knowledge of the Biblical text. The stories of Adam and Eve, of Noah's Ark, and of Moses' life in Egypt are all fairly well-known to people of many different religions and of no religion whatsoever -- they have become a part of the cultural mythology, removed at least in part from their religious implications.

This fact has allowed for the Bible and its individual characters and stories to become far more than a mere reference point or source of common understanding and inspiration. Many authors and poets have directly re-imagined stories and characters appearing in the Bible from a more modern perspective, illuminating portions of the stories that were perhaps invisible until this perspective was brought to bear on them. The increasing secularism of the modern world has even allowed for the direct questioning of the Bible's versions of events, casting the very idea of what is "right" or "good" into doubt.

Kristine Batey's poem "Lot's Wife" does exactly this, in taking the position and attitude of the unnamed spouse of Abraham's nephew into consideration during the destruction by God of her hometown, Sodom. Because Abraham and his nephew failed to find even ten righteous people in the city, God condemns Sodom and its neighbor Gomorrah (as well as several other neighboring cities) to utter destruction, including death for all of their inhabitants. As the righteous Lot and his family leave just before the destruction, they are warned not to look back. Lot's wife is unable to resist this lingering sorrow and regret, and upon turning from a hillside to glimpse her home once more she is instantly turned into a pillar of salt, frozen in her moment of disobedience through human impulse. The Bible story seems to focus more on the disobedience, whereas Batey focuses on the impulse.

In shifting her focus in this manner, Batey is challenging the righteousness of God's punishment of Lot's wife; she was acting out of simple human emotion, and not out of any selfish desire, and thus it seems unfair of God to bring this punishment upon her. It is doubtless a moment of human weakness, as nothing was served by her looking back and indeed she ad been directly told not to do so, but it seems a minor and understandable failing. The bulk of the poem is concerned with Lot's wife's remembrances of the good her neighbors had done for her, and the seeming senselessness of the destruction to her home city. Like her, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were merely following their impulses, living in the way that seemed best to them -- and for God, this was punishable by death.

Being "good," for God, meant obedience above all else. Every individual is expected to live a righteous life, and the terms of that righteousness are set by God's commandments, regardless of how these interact with the impulses, desires, and concerns that are a part of human nature (which ostensibly came from God, as well). Batey references the difference in religion between Lot's family and their neighbors as an insignificant reason for such punishment; God would disagree. In addition, it is part of God's expectation that each human individual love and respect each other, and this certainly does not occur when the crowd demands Lot's guests -- actually angels -- come out for a ritualistic rape of the outsiders. It is custom for the town, but a major source of God's wrath.

It is also a part of God's commandments that one is to respect their parents, and in an ironic way Lot's wife demonstrates the human source for this respect in her attention to her children and even her memories of her neighbors' help during childbirth. The poem focuses heavily on maternity and the fact that a woman is forced to live life day-by-day, with a different understanding of "good." For God, though, this respect again is usually interpreted as simple obedience. It is God's most basic definition of good, the one individual should not violate another -- that is the ultimate cause for the destruction of the cities, however, and Batey's lack of acknowledgment for this event seems to suggest that neither she nor Lot's wife can truly dismiss this transgression. Still, the single incident does not seem to warrant near-instant and outright destruction in human terms of "good."

It is this perspective that is most fully examined in Batey's poem. "Good in human terms," to Batey, means following the impulses of friendship and allegiance that get one through life, whether they are good or bad. Being good means understanding that mistakes are made, and being able to see the bigger picture in order to forgive and continue to co-exist with neighbors and friends despite these mistakes. Lust and sexual appetite are parts of human nature, as much as many Judeo-Christian sects try to deny this feature of existence, and though a simple abandon to impulsive living is not generally seen as "good," lapses of lust are typically the most easily forgiven, especially when goodness has been shown in many more pressing areas -- such as the childbirth that results from a certain sexual act.

There are also many less desirable elements of humanity that are nonetheless unavoidable aspects of human nature. It is part of human nature to kill in the defense of oneself, one's family, and one's home; is it not also part of human nature to grieve for the loss of any of these, as Lot's wife did? Lying and cheating are parts of human nature, too, and are far more self-serving yet more easily forgiven by God, it seems, than the direct disobedience of Lot's wife's regret. Another interpretation could see Lot's wife as pining primarily for the loss of her material wealth -- her physical house and the furniture, livestock, and other goods that the family was unable to pack up and take with them as they departed at dawn. This materialism is itself a part of human nature, as it provides security and a sense of place. Lot's wife turned back because ahead of her was a world that lacked both of these.