Jane Pittman as the Virgin Mary in Ernest J. Gaines's The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

This essay argues that Ernest J. Gaines's The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman holds realism and antirealism together through Marian symbolism. Reading from the novel's "Catholic margins," I trace Mariological titles that shape the novel's historiography: Theotokos, New Eve, Mater Dolorosa, Mediatrix, and Regina Caeli. Situating Mariology within the text's multivocal memory and idioms, I argue that pivotal scenes function as sites of historical yet symbolic narration, rendering the past in a religious mode while preserving the novel's immanent social horizon.