The Female Voice Character Analysis in Lincoln in the Bardo

A bean-sized woman embedded in the tendril that emerges from the ground and wraps around Willie to keep him from leaving the Bardo. This woman explains that she and the other bean-sized people on the tendril are in hell, though not the worst version of hell. She also offers to let the Reverend, Bevins, and Vollman move Willie from inside the crypt to the roof so that he can carry out his eternal internment outside. When the Reverend presses her for details, she reveals that she killed her husband because she found him irritating. Like the other hell-dwellers on the tendril, though, she insists that she can’t be blamed for her immoral actions because she was born with certain evil “predispositions.”

The Female Voice Quotes in Lincoln in the Bardo

The Lincoln in the Bardo quotes below are all either spoken by The Female Voice or refer to The Female Voice . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

Whatever my sin, it must, I felt (I prayed), be small, compared to the sins of these. And yet, I was of their ilk. Was I not? When I went, it seemed, it would be to join them.

As I had many times preached, our Lord is a fearsome Lord, and mysterious, and will not be predicted, but judges as He sees fit, and we are but as lambs to Him, whom He regards with neither affection or malice; some go to the slaughter, while others are released to the meadow, by His whim, according to a standard we are too lowly to discern.

It is only for us to accept; accept His judgment, and our punishment.

But, as applied to me, this teaching did not satisfy.

And oh, I was sick, sick at heart.

Related Characters: The Reverend Everly Thomas (speaker), Willie Lincoln, The Female Voice , The British Voice , The Vermonter

Page Number and Citation: 268

Explanation and Analysis:

We were as we were! the bass lisper barked. How could we have been otherwise? Or, being that way, have done otherwise? We were that way, at that time, and had been led to that place, not by any innate evil in ourselves, but by the state of our cognition and our experience up until that moment.

By Fate, by Destiny, said the Vermonter.

By the fact that time runs in only one direction, and we are borne along by it, influenced precisely as we are, to do just the things that we do, the bass lisper said.

And then are cruelly punished for it, said the woman.

Related Characters: The Reverend Everly Thomas (speaker), Willie Lincoln, The Female Voice , The Bass Voice , The British Voice , The Vermonter

Page Number and Citation: 270

Explanation and Analysis:

The Female Voice Character Timeline in Lincoln in the Bardo

The timeline below shows where the character The Female Voice appears in Lincoln in the Bardo. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...to the roof, so that he might serve out his (infinite) interment there.” As this female voice finishes speaking, a bass voice with a “slight lisp” sounds out, saying, “Mind you, none... (full context)

Bevins asks the tendril-people who they are and why they’re “compelled,” but the female voice declares that she and the others will not discuss those matters. “Mistakes were made,” adds... (full context)

...not compelled to bash our skulls against a series of clustered screw-drivers at least,” chimes the female voice . “Are not being sodomized by a flaming bull,” adds the bass. Suddenly, the Reverend... (full context)

...than adults, suggesting that this is unfair. “Please do not speak to us of fairness,” the female voice says. “Did I murder Elmer?” she asks, and when the Vermonter says, “You did,” she... (full context)