The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse

As the novel’s dynamic protagonist, Agnes lives a life that reflects The Intertwining of Love, Sacrifice, and Suffering. Her journey from the musically gifted but repressed Sister Cecilia to the passionate lover Agnes DeWitt and then to the long-serving priest Father Damien Modeste stands as a testament to her resilience and complexity. Her lifelong performance as Damien—a disguise that becomes a more authentic identity than the one she was born with—offers a deep analysis of gender as a social and spiritual construct. Agnes’s character arc progresses in a series of profound transformations, each of which is precipitated by moments of personal trauma and propelled by the underlying force of a divine calling. For example, the loss of her piano in the flood symbolizes the destruction of her identity as Agnes, while her emergence from the water is a symbolic baptism into her subsequent existence as Damien. The “sincere lie” of her masquerade lies at the core of her character (61), as her chosen disguise is paradoxically a burdensome deception and her truest vocation.

Agnes’s character is defined by a deep capacity for passion, which is continually rechanneled and repressed as the circumstances of her life dramatically shift.