The Characters In The Bridge To San Luis Rey

The bridge to San Luis Rey is a tragic story where all of the main characters are unaware that when they die, they will all have something in common. All of the people walking across the bridge that day had the choice to go where they were going when they attempted to cross the bridge. No one made them but they had the free will to do so. As brother Juniper was studying the lives of these five people, he thought that it was important to compare and contrast each of their lives and everything that could have made these people die at the same time on the same bridge. He soon found out that these people all had something in common. A few of the characters had thought they knew about love but in reality, they were still learning. Their fate kept those people from learning everything about love and their free will lead them to that bridge where their lives were ended soon after.

PART ONE:

On July 20, 1714 five people were caught in a tragic accident and died. By fate, a man by the name of Brother
Juniper decided to stop and rest in front of the bridge before it broke and watched all five people die right in front of him. He believed they died for a reason, free will made juniper want to study all five people individually and see if there was some reason that each person had to die that day and at the same time. After six years of nothing but research on all the people of the bridge that died and their loved ones, and he wrote a book about what he discovered on the people and what they had in common. Free will let him think that it would be alright to show other people the book he wrote but people did not take to it as he thought they would. Later he was charged for heretic and he and the book were burned in the public square.

PART TWO:

In this part of the book the main people were Dona Maria and another girl that was with her when the bridge fell, Pepita. After being old enough to understand free will, Clara married off to a lord to avoid her mother because of her constant smothering and possessiveness and moved away by free will. It was fate that Clara moved away because if she had not, the two of them would not have died on the bridge that day, then brother Juniper would have never been able to study them and compare the two of them with the other from the other parts of the book.

PART THREE:

The main character in this chapter is Esteban and Manuel, who are twins that were left in front of Madre Mara's convent when they were both only babies. The twins grow up with each other and are often mistaken for each other, so they try to avoid going out into public together completely, but when they do, they are never near each other. Fate made Manuel bump his knee against that piece of metal and later died so Esteban would have the free will to join the captain on his voyage. On the voyage Esteban crossed the bridge and fell to his death.

PART FOUR:

At the early age of ten-years-old, Uncle Pio ran away from on because of free will.
He lived on his own and worked any job that he could get by errands, distributed handbills, worked with horses, trained snakes and bears for circuses, cooked, and made money by spreading rumors. He lived alone until he reached his twenties and found a poor girl named Micaela Villegas who was only twelve years old. Free will made him want to take her under his wing and teach her everything about preforming. When she grew older, she was the best in Peru and grew to be very beautiful. After more time she had three children by the viceroy, but free will made her begin having affairs with other men after getting bored of the viceroy. As time passes Micaela Villegas takes on small pox and becomes ill. Uncle Pio offers to take one of her children and train him as he trained her in the past. Fate made uncle Pio and the boy cross the bridge and the right moment and they soon fall and die
together.

PART FIVE:

A stone bridge is built to stretch across the gorge for people to cross after the bridge falls and kills five people. Many poems are written about the tragedy but those writings are no better than Brother Juniper’s book that was burned with him in the public square. The narrator says “but the real literary monument is Brother Juniper's book.” Fate and free will bring all the people and families to each other that belonged to the five that died, and they help each other get along and morn