Marina as Christ Figure in State of Wonder

This short blog will give the ending away, so if you don't want to know what happens in Anne Patchett's State of Wonder, you might want to skip this one.

I've been thinking since I read SOW that Marina, the protagonist, becomes a secular Christ figure--only in the literary sense of the term, of course--in that she travels to the Amazon to save her friend, leaving her comfortable existence working for Vogel Pharmaceuticals, just as Jesus came to suffer on earth, not to save himself but to save others.

As with Christ, who did not reveal himself or begin his ministry until his "time had come" when he was thirty, so Marina works in the lab in the beginning, having given  up medicine years ago when she cut a baby doing a C-section. When her time comes, however, she heals the sick, first by performing another, this time successful, C-section with only crude instruments and thereafter performing many wonders for the Lakisha.

And in the end, she sacrifices everything--Easter (or at least his love if we believe that Dr. Swenson is right about his returning) and probably Dr. Fox, who will both break off their relationship and fire her when he finds out about the malaria medicine. What does Marina get for this sacrifice? Nothing except knowing that Anders is home with his children, whose father she has raised from the dead, and knowing that the Lakisha will not be destroyed. In fact, millions of people in both South America and Africa may be saved by her choices.

And what about the name Easter? He too became a sacrifice. Will he rise again, metaphorically, by returning to Dr. Swenson's camp? I hope so. He did once.