Dorcas by Dorcas

In “The Book of the New Sun”, Dorcas is the torturer-protagonist’s love interest. Not the only one, though perhaps the most important as her innocent existence, suspended between life and death, largely motivates his transformation. Like her biblical counterpart, she rose from the dead: Severian, then unaware of his resurrection powers, pulled her from the bottom of a lake back into the world of the living. The more he becomes attached to Dorcas, the more his need for love and care grows, the more she suffers and longs to return where she came from: the necropolis under the lake’s waters. She symbolises the pure and new, which inspires change, at the same time serving as a reminder that symbols cannot exist in reality. When a sign takes on real meaning in life, while it brings forth renewal, it ceases to exist as a holy icon in itself. We may desire perfection, but we will never seize it.

Wandering through the streets of Nessus