37 pages • 1 hour read
Francine RiversRedeeming Love
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1991A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Sarah
Sarah, though she is known by many names, is the clear protagonist in the novel. Born as an unwanted, illegitimate child, she is forced into child prostitution, where she is taught that the only thing she has to offer is her body. Though she escapes the clutches of her abuser, Sarah finds herself trapped in the lifestyle when she gains employment at a brothel. Her life changes when she meets Michael Hosea, a Christian farmer compelled by God to marry her. He rescues her from the brothel and tries to convince her to put her old life behind her. But Sarah’s self-loathing drives her to run away time and time again because she believes she’s not worthy of Michael’s love.
To Sarah, “falling in love meant you lost control of your emotions and your will and your life” (186). She carries emotional scars from her childhood, as she witnessed how precarious her mother’s life became because she loved a married man. Sarah decides early on not to be like her mother and hardens her heart against love. She clings to this belief even as she develops feelings for Michael, her savior husband. A crucial part of her character development is learning that, in order to be happy, she must let love in—both Michael’s love and God’s love.
One of Sarah’s defining characteristics is her belief that men only value sex. As a child, she saw how poorly women—specifically, her mother and Cleo—were treated by men after they had sex, so she internalized the message that women are easily discarded. This dovetailed with her pre-existing feelings of worthlessness because her father did not want her, and her life as a prostitute constantly reaffirmed her beliefs. It is only through constant exposure to Michael’s selfless behavior and his sexual restraint that Sarah begins to see that men can be motivated by love.
Though she is mired in tragedy for much of the narrative, Sarah slowly awakens to the power of God. Her husband teaches her to listen to the voice in her head, which he says is God’s voice. This personal relationship with the divine guides Sarah out of her misery and makes her realize that she is worthy of Michael’s love. When God tells her that she must die so she can be born again, it is a metaphor for forgiveness. Sarah must forgive herself and reconcile with her past to truly overcome it. It is not until she reaches her lowest point—being back under her former abuser’s thumb—that she realizes her worth and fully accepts God.
Michael Hosea
Michael Hosea is the simple, God-fearing farmer who falls in love with the local town’s high-class prostitute. While other characters experience growth, self-doubt, and change, Michael remains steadfast throughout the novel. His belief in God is unwavering, and though he occasionally disagrees with what God tells him, he rarely wavers from the course that God sets for him. As such, Michael is a somewhat two-dimensional character, existing only as a foil to Sarah.
Michael is steeped in Evangelism. He reads the Bible every night and reads it aloud to groups of people. This allows him to see the parallels that exist between his current predicaments and the stories contained in the religious text. His own name is a reference to the biblical story upon which Redeeming Love is based (the Book of Hosea), and though he notes the irony, he rarely extrapolates any deeper meaning. He likens his own plight to figures from the Bible. He is pleased when Sarah begins to understand and reference the Bible stories herself; this, he feels, is his gift to her, providing a discourse and a language with which she can express belief.
While Sarah doubts herself constantly, Michael is determined and self-assured. God tells him to marry Sarah, and Michael follows this directive without question, bluntly approaching Sarah and refusing to take no for an answer. He is a farmer, so he farms. He never considers doing anything else; he works the land exactly as he intends to, turning his hand to any discipline which comes to him. He is handsome, rugged, intelligent, and with very few flaws. Though Michael can be quick to anger, the only people who truly suffer his wrath are those who come between him and his wife. These people are interfering with God’s plan, he seems to believe, so anger and violence against them is justified.
As ever, Michael’s faith carries him through his hardships. His faith is resolute, and he is one of the only characters able to truly hear the words of God as they are spoken. His role is to aid the slow conversion of others to the Christian faith. He is the pivot around which their lives turn, his faith providing him with the strength to support Sarah, Paul, the Altman family, and anyone else God tells him to support.
Duke
There is little doubt that Duke is the novel’s chief antagonist. He is evil personified in the text, with many allusions to his satanic nature. A wealthy, sinister pedophile who runs a prostitution ring out of his homes and gambling houses, Duke torments Sarah from a young age. When she becomes pregnant after his continued raping, he has the baby aborted and then has Sarah sterilized. When he finds Sarah on the street in San Francisco, he snatches her back into his clutches and prepares to have her run his business.
Given the importance of the names in the text, it should be noted that the two people who control Sarah’s prostitution career share a title. They are Duke and Duchess; they are extensions of one another. Whereas Sarah guards her real name and keeps it a secret, representing her unwillingness to open up to people, Duke’s name is kept secret because of the nature of his business. Both he and Duchess are suppliers of man’s most base desires. They profit from the misery of the women in their control. To them, the lack of a real name is protection from the law. His name reflects his station in life: he is aristocratic, manipulating the pawns who he sees as beneath him.
Duke is a man who regularly employs violence to control people. He kills Sarah’s uncle for saying his true name. When Sarah tries to escape with a man named Jonny, Duke has Jonny killed. Years later, he has the café where Sarah works burned down to force her back into his care.
His unchristian attitude is demonstrably immoral, yet Duke is never truly punished for his sins. His last appearance is in the gambling house, when the crowd begins to realize the true depths of his depravity. Though Jonathan Axle tells Sarah that he thinks that Duke will be “hanging from a post by now” (363), his fate is never shown. Duke simply disappears into the crowd and is never seen again. Though Duke’s storyline does not reach a satisfying conclusion, the open-endedness represents Sarah’s ongoing psychological trauma. Duke does not need a corporeal form because Sarah will see his influence in every destitute woman selling herself on the street, in every crying child. The damage Duke has done to Sarah and countless other women and children will last well beyond any execution or punishment, so ostensibly, he cannot be killed.
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By Francine Rivers
