Redeeming Love

“Pair-a-Dice was wild jubilation. It wed black despair with fear and the foul taste of failure.” 

Sarah finds herself in the slum town Pair-a-Dice, which is populated by Gold Rush opportunists. The name of the town, a pun on the word paradise, is imbued with a heavy sense of irony. The celebratory depravity exists alongside squalid conditions. The alliteration in the quote’s second sentence brings the foulness to life, implying a spluttering, spitting stench that hangs on every word.

“Lord, I’d need a million years to reach this woman. Are you sure this is the one you meant for me?” 

Michael is caught in a difficult situation. As a good Christian man, he is determined to listen to the voice he believes to be God. But when God tells him to marry a prostitute, Michael is momentarily filled with doubt. His inability to resolve this internal tension adds weight to the scene.

“She had the awful gut feeling she had just thrown her last chance away.” 

Michael returns to Sarah every night. Though she continuously rejects him, he keeps trying because he was instructed by God to marry her. When he finally leaves the town, Sarah’s emotions are complicated. Given her past, she does not allow herself to be happy or feel hope. All the men in her life have brought her nothing but pain, and she does not want Michael to do the same. So she drives him away.

“One egg was worth two dollars, and cheese was very hard to come by at any price.” 

Sarah finds herself caught in an impossible situation. She fears the Duchess and Magowan; earlier attempts to leave her life behind have resulted in tragedy. But when she enters the Duchess’s room and sees her eating eggs, Sarah is reminded of how much she is being exploited. The cheap rooms, the cheap food, and the bad conditions endured by the prostitutes are juxtaposed against the older woman eating food that costs a relative fortune. 

“‘Why not?’” 

When Michael asks Sarah to marry him for the final time, she is too broken to say no. After Magowan brutally beats her, she is in a drug-addled state from the laudanum a doctor gives her. She is not excited about the prospect of marrying Michael, but because it will get her away from Magowan and the Duchess, she reluctantly agrees.

“‘I’m not going to hurt you, Mara,’ he said gently. ‘I love you.’” 

Michael’s words, spoken while Sarah is in a delirious state, unintentionally remind her of the Duchess. Despite the daily exploitation she experienced, Sarah was always told how lucky she was. Michael’s assurances that she is safe feel just as manipulative because she was taken to his home without her true consent. Though he might see himself as a savior guided by God, Michael appears no different from the other men in Sarah’s life at this stage—especially because he gives her another new name, Mara. 

“‘So your brother-in-law is another of the multitude raping the streams of California—and anything else to be found.’” 

This is the first real equivocation between the plight of the prostitutes in the Old West and the Gold Rush. The men who chase both share one thing in common: they want to take anything they think has value. Here, Sarah is likening herself to the earth itself. Just like the natural landscape of California, her value has been plundered. 

“She clenched her burned hand into a fist.” 

Sarah’s failed attempt at cooking reveals the vital difference between herself and her husband. Because of his religion, Michael is quick to forgive and acts leniently despite his new wife’s failures. Sarah, on the other hand, is furious with herself for not knowing how to cook. Furthermore, Michael’s forgiveness riles her. She wants him to be angry because that is what every other man she has known would have done. 

“‘Once a prostitute, always a prostitute.’” 

Though Paul and Sarah are not friends, they share the belief that Sarah is doomed by her past as a prostitute and cannot escape it. Neither one believes that she deserves to be happy. 

“All she wanted was to be clean, to wash it all away, everything from as far back as she could remember.” 

The sins of Sarah’s past weigh heavily on her soul. Even after Michael has dragged her out of the saloon, she cannot bring herself to make peace with her past. When she sees how deeply she has hurt Michael, she goes to the ice-cold stream and tries to wash away her sins. The cold water mimics the concept of baptism, and Sarah hopes that cleanliness will be her route to salvation. 

“‘You know, sometimes you can hurt yourself more by trying to keep yourself from being hurt!’” 

This sentiment has chased Sarah ever since she moved into Michael’s house. She is scared of loving Michael and the Altman family, so she tries to drive them away. When Miriam tells her this, Angel laughs it off, unable to recognize her own inner tragedy.

“When Michael smiled at her, the dark voice lost its power.” 

The lasting psychological trauma from Sarah’s time with Duke is a malevolent force that compels her to leave Michael because she’s terrified of hurting him. But Angel is slowly beginning to realize that Michael has the power to ameliorate this evil force. Only through Michael, she is beginning to realize, can she repair her fractured mind. 

“Angel refused to defend herself against Paul.” 

Paul tortures Sarah (who still thinks of herself as Angel) with her own self-doubts. He needles away at her confidence, constantly telling her how Michael and Miriam would be the ideal pairing. This is extremely effective because Angel thinks the same thing. Paul plays on her worst fears and eventually has the desired effect. 

“I am.” 

God’s voice becomes clearer and clearer to Sarah as she spends more time with (and devotes herself to) Michael. In this instance, she has spent an evening reading and discussing the Bible with her husband. These words are a reference to an Old Testament quote, when God made His presence felt to His followers, and a sign that Sarah’s own faith is awakening. 

“Setting the bare cob aside, she picked up a kernel. Smiling, she rolled its hard shape between her fingers.” 

As Sarah shells dried corn, God tells her that, to be reborn, she must die. This makes her think about how corn can only grow by planting old, withered kernels from a past harvest. The seeds are a metaphor for her potential, which she cannot reach until she accepts God into her life and buries her past.

“She was trying to take in the fact that she had work and that it had fallen right into her lap like a ripe plum from heaven.” 

Slowly, Sarah begins to learn the power of the voice in her head. If she follows God’s instructions, she will get what she needs. Though she is far away from her husband, Michael, Sarah is discovering the power of what he taught her about God and faith. 

“A Chinese servant came in to strip the bed and put on fresh linens.” 

Locked in the room in Duke’s gambling house, Sarah does a number of chores, including making the bed, to distract herself. When Duke enters, he has a servant change the bed linen. The action is a metaphor: Duke is undoing all of Sarah’s hard work to forget the trauma he inflicted. Just like the bed linens, the psychological tools that Sarah used to normalize her life are being stripped away on Duke’s command. 

“Perhaps he had waved his hand and produced them from the fire and smoke.” 

The ability to produce magic with “fire and smoke” is a clear allusion to the devil. If Sarah is to save herself, then she must escape the devil’s clutches—in this case, Duke—and return to Michael, who is on the side of God. 

“Though you deny me, I love you with an everlasting love.” 

Sarah’s means of escaping Duke’s clutches relate directly to her belief in God. She sings a hymn and is immediately rescued by Jonathan Axle. When she and Jonathan leave, they discuss religion, and Sarah slowly begins to realize that the voice in her head is God. She makes the connection between following God’s plan and freedom. 

“She drank in the words of salvation and redemption though she felt she had no right to them.” 

Having heard the word of God directly, Sarah is able to listen to church services and accept organized religion, just as Michael always hoped for her. However, she still doubt that she has any right to be redeemed. 

“I know what God wants me to do with my life.” 

Sarah’s salvation is nearly complete. Now, she speaks about God with a firm belief that he exists. She needs no further verification or justification. Not only that, but God’s role in Angel’s life has changed. Now, he not only gives her hope, but purpose as well. 

“Paul’s words struck her squarely in the chest.” 

When Paul visits Sarah and tells her what has happened in the three years since she left, she is shocked to hear that Michael is still waiting for her. The plans she thought she had set in motion—Michael ending up with Miriam—have not been realized. The revelation causes her physical pain, forcing her to confront the blunt reality that leaving Michael was not the right thing to do, as she formerly though. 

“‘My name is Sarah.’” 

When they are reunited, Sarah decides to reveal to Michael her real name. After the prologue, the only character to repeatedly use the name Sarah has been God. Even Sarah thinks of herself as Angel. Revealing her name shows the trust she places in Michael and that she is finally, fully, dedicating herself to their marriage.