Immaculate Conception

Immaculate Conception

If the phrase “immaculate conception” where to be dissected into two separate words, it's meaning would no longer have the same implications. “Immaculate” is something that is pure, free from fault or error; and “conception” is something conceived in the mind, an abstract or general idea inferred or derived from specific instances. However the phrase “immaculate conception” derives from the Roman Catholic Church. It is the doctrine that the Virgin Mary was conceived free from all strain of original sin. In Katherine Gover's "The Immaculate Conception Photography Gallery," the meaning of the title as a phrase and the meaning of the title as individual words applied to the denouements in the story are important to understanding the author's message to her readers.

Gover uses religious connotations throughout the story, “immaculate conception” being the most prevalent. The name of the photography gallery, “The Immaculate Conception” is a little ironic; “immaculate conception” is the idea of being free from all strain of original sin, yet; the wedding pictures displayed in the front window of the gallery have “a haze of concupiscence” (690) which validates that the doctrine of “immaculate conception” is falsifiable. The photographs and the gallery’s name are contradictory. The pictures do not depict the purity and naivetй that the Virgin Mary symbolizes. The use of Roman