The requested sacrifice reveals a condition on consent
Give the reader a specific situation to interpret, then use the formal explanation to make sense of it. A label or overview may already have appeared.
The Nun's Story
Kathryn Hulme · 48 weeksThe requested sacrifice reveals a condition on consent
SHORT SOURCE EXCERPT“humility with hooks”
Mother Marcella asks Sister Luke whether she could fail her examinations to show humility. Sister Luke offers conditional consent if the mother house knows and approves. The Superior then names and explains a form of humility that takes satisfaction back from the sacrifice, specifically the satisfaction of being known to have made it.
The explanation has a precise referent: the added condition, rather than the broad fact that Sister Luke finds sacrifice difficult. The choice makes the institution’s distinction understandable while leaving its demand open to the reader’s judgment.
The source in context.
Sister Luke excels in tropical-medicine studies but struggles with another nun and with the spiritual meaning assigned to success. Mother Marcella proposes deliberate examination failure as a sacrifice; Sister Luke ultimately passes highly, leaving professional achievement and the proposed religious ideal in unresolved tension.
Open this chapterWhat this example supports
The explanation has a precise referent: the added condition, rather than the broad fact that Sister Luke finds sacrifice difficult. The choice makes the institution’s distinction understandable while leaving its demand open to the reader’s judgment.
Its limit
Mother Marcella’s definition belongs to the scene’s religious framework. The episode does not establish that deliberately failing an examination is ethically required, beneficial or a valid measure of humility.
Source & edition
Kathryn Hulme, The Nun’s Story, supplied 1959 Pan Books transcription; inclusive LF anchors.
Supplied text, lines 2725–2837. The short quotation is checked against the source.
Checked live development-family and source-scope eligibility before source access. Read the complete whole-source AI synthesis and all six ordered segment summaries, section maps, qualifications and gaps. Inspected the title/imprint, every main chapter opening and ending, the complete final photo-booth scene and adjoining publisher material. Read the retained exam-choice and deathbed/recovery sequences in their actual source contexts, including the response of the community, and checked the asylum rule/breach candidate before deferring it. This is a source-checked editorial pass, not a second full reading, independent review or verification of narrated events.
Supplied unabridged Pan Books transcription identifying a 1959 edition; first publication and copyright 1956.