Mother Miriam implies that Agnes’s mysterious pregnancy may be a miraculous occurrence, invoking the idea of the miraculous conception, the way in which Jesus Christ was conceived by Mary without Mary having sex, which in some theological traditions is associated with the transmission of original sin. Mary’s virginity is thus a sign of both her physical “purity” and her spiritual openness to God. Likewise, Agnes is repeatedly described as pure, both in her innocence and in her childlike understanding of the world, and Mother Miriam interprets this purity as evidence that Agnes could be the recipient of a miracle. From this perspective, Agnes’s lack of worldly knowledge and her deep religiosity make her a Marian figure. However, by framing Agnes in this way, the play troubles these theological concepts, showing how they can be wielded to police the female body. 

To begin with, the play links Agnes’s “purity” to her trauma. Her innocence is not simply spiritual; it is the result of abuse and repression. She has been denied knowledge of her own body and sexuality, which creates a form of enforced purity. Moreover, to the extent that her purity is chosen, it is entangled with guilt and shame. Agnes’s mother instilled in her the belief that she is “bad” simply for existing in a female body. As she explains: “She says…my whole body…is a mistake. […] Because she says…if I don’t watch out…I’ll have a baby” (42). Elsewhere, Agnes associates the female reproductive capacity even more explicitly with sin, saying that “Bad babies come from when a fallen angel squeezes in down there” (19). Both passages are notable for the fact that they associate the mere fact of being female with danger and immorality; the implication is that even a woman who is raped and involuntarily impregnated (as Agnes’s description of the fallen angel figuratively evokes) is “sinful.” Consequently, Agnes associates holiness with the disciplining and denial of her body; she points to her breasts when explaining why she feels the need to lose weight, and Mother Miriam’s words upon discovering that Agnes burned her sheets—“[H]ow many times have I burned into your thick skull […] that menstruation is a perfectly natural process and nothing to be ashamed of” (37)—implies that anxiety about menstruation has been a frequent point of contention. 

Simultaneously, the play suggests that the very purity that makes one open to the divine presence also places the individual in a position of exposure. In religious narratives, this exposure is sanctified, but in other contexts, it can be dangerous. Most obviously, Agnes’s ignorance of sex leaves her particularly vulnerable to exploitation of the kind that presumably resulted in her pregnancy. Moreover, the language of purity gives cover to her abuser after the fact, obscuring the reality of harm by imposing a spiritual narrative onto a physical and psychological violation. In this context, even the suggestion of a miraculous conception becomes problematic—a point underscored by the fact that Agnes twice identifies the figure who raped her with God. The play thus implies that religious narratives that glorify women as passive vessels—for God, for childbirth, etc.—are no less problematic than those that demonize the female body outright.