Science, Secularism, and Chance in Penelope Fitzgerald's The Gate of Angels

Set in 1912, Penelope Fitzgerald's The Gate of Angels (1990) registers cultural trends marking the early twentieth century as it engages and transforms its Victorian heritage. It does so particularly regarding two phenomena: the impact of science, centred on the shift from classical to modern physics, and the growth of secularism. By evoking a world of unexpectedness and chance, as suggested by the early stages of atomic theory and quantum mechanics, it holds open a gate for admission of the potentially extraordinary—in particular, a human capacity for self-transcendence and for mutual caring that both science and religion can be judged by their ability to promote or retard.