Agnes Magunsdottir's Burial Rites: An Analysis

Hannah Kent’s speculative biography ‘Burial Rites’ depicts a particularly unforgiving world that is Iceland in the early 19th century. Based upon factual events, ‘Burial Rites’ details an interpretation created by Kent into the final months of Agnes Magunsdottir’s life, a woman who has been convicted for her involvement in the murder of two men. Agnes had lived a terribly unfortunate life, both as a female in a brutal, male-dominant patriarchal, but also as someone who, perhaps rightly, believes has been victim of a successive run of ill-fate. As she approaches her final weeks alive, Agnes however learns that there are a minority of people in her world that important beacons in her otherwise dark final days; Toti, a young Reverend tasked with being Agnes’ ‘spiritual advisor’, and to a lesser extent, the family she spends her fleeting time with at the farm in Kornsa. Agnes’ story is one of misfortune, as …show more content…
After the trial which saw Agnes condemned to death, she requested the services of Reverend Toti to be her ‘spiritual advisor’. After an awkward beginning, Agnes and Toti form a close relationship, with Agnes eventually being comfortable enough to tell Toti of the events of the murder at Illugastadir. This bond is shown at the conclusion to the novel, as Toti cries emotionally with Agnes as she reaches the execution block; “I won’t let go of you. God is all around us, Agnes. I won’t ever let go”. To a lesser extent, Agnes also forms a strong tie with Margret, the mistress of the farm at Kornsa, shown by Margret saying to Agnes in the same scene, “I am right here, Agnes. You’ll be all right, my girl. My girl”. Through both the empathy and compassion that Toti and Margret show her after learning of her story, Agnes gains an alternate viewpoint that there are some exceptions into an otherwise unforgiving