History Main / TakingTheVeil

* Zig-zagged in ''Heavenly Ways'' by Ivan Shmelyov. Darinka is deeply pious, has a vocation and wants nothing more than to enter a convent, and after solving her financial problems with the help of Viktor she does become a postulant. The problem is she and Viktor are almost instantly drawn to each other, so much that after the beloved old abbess dies, Viktor [[OneThingLedToAnother comforts]] Darinka, and she leaves the convent to live with him. However, especially since he is married (though separated), she is extremely conflicted about it and admits she has never been truly happy since she left the convent.
* ''Literature/MariaWatchesOverUs'' takes place in a Catholic school. It's shown in flashbacks that Sei's previous girlfriend left her to become a nun.
* In ''Literature/DangerousLiaisons,'' Cecile starts the story freshly emerged from the convent where her parents placed her to shelter her from the world, and ends it broken by tragedy and retiring to become a nun. Incidentally, Valmont, TheCasanova, is bitingly sarcastic about the effectiveness of a convent upbringing in ensuring virtue (and demonstrates the point as a means to an end):
-->"To seduce a young girl, who has seen nothing, knows nothing, and would in a manner give herself up without making the least defence, intoxicated with the first homage paid to her charms, and perhaps incited rather by curiosity than love; there twenty others may be as successful as I."
* Per ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'', Piccarda Donati became a nun in her life to escape from the world, but unfortunately, the world did not take kindly to that.
* In the novel ''Keeper of the Crystal Spring'', after the Norman invasion of 1066, three female characters were forced to become nuns. Toward the end of the novel, the abbess declares that forced vows are invalid, and releases two of the women affected. She also offers to release the third, who is the widow of a slain local lord; but the nun replies that while the vows were forced at the time, "I keep them freely, for I have found my peace within the abbey walls."
* In ''Literature/TheWindEye'', 16-year-old Beth's stepbrother jokes that she'll probably end up as a nun. She replies that she's seriously considering the idea. By the end of the book she's decided not to go through with it, realising she only saw it as a means of escape from her dysfunctional family.

* On ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'', Earl's former landlady entered a convent after being convinced she'd heard the voice of God...which was actually just Earl on a walkie-talkie being picked up by her hearing aid. (Earl and his friends took full advantage of this, and used the walkie-talkie to convince her to do nice things for them.) When Earl tells her what he did she has a CrisisOfFaith.

* On ''Series/OneLifeToLive,'' Gabrielle Medina runs to a convent to take vows because she's so terrified of her feelings for Max Holden. Him tracking her down and them going at it on the grounds of the rectory changea her mind. Years later, Maggie Carpenter is already enrolled in the convent when she meets Max. She abandons her studies to pursue a relationship with him but leaves town to resume them when it falls apart.
* On ''Series/TheMusketeers'', Aramis' FirstLove Isabel was LockedAwayInAMonastery by her parents and became a nun after she miscarried their baby, or so Aramis believes. In truth, it was her choice because she knew that Aramis would never be happy settling down and start a family.
* In the final episode of ''Series/RobinOfSherwood'', Marian chose to take the vows after she believed that Robin was killed.

* In ''Series/HikariSentaiMaskman'', [[TheDragon Igam]] [[spoiler:is revealed to be a woman and in fact the lost princess of the good Tube kingdom before it was corrupted by the current ruler Zeba and she was basically tricked into servitude. Once she pieced things together, she turned against Zeba and helped the Maskman take it down. In the end, her history of serving Zeba still remained, so to make up for that, she became a nun and wandered the underground labyrinth of Tube [[TheAtoner to atone for her time as Zeba's general.]]]]

* At the end of Mozart's ''Don Giovanni'', Donna Elvira, whom Don Giovanni had seduced and abandoned, decides she will opt for a convent.

[[folder:TabletopGames]]

* In ''Theatre/TheSoundOfMusic'', Maria Rainer was a nun-in-training before being sent to the Von Trapp family as a governess. Later in the play/movie, she tries to ''definitely'' return to the convent after she realizes she is in love with the Captain. The Reverend Mother, being a rather savvy sort of person, informs Maria kindly but firmly that she can't use the convent to run away from her feelings, and reassures her that "just because you love this man, it doesn't mean you love God less." Maria takes the advice at heart and averts the trope by returning to the family and marrying the Captain.
* In ''Theatre/MuchAdoAboutNothing'', when Hero has been accused of being unfaithful, the priest's Plan B is to quietly ship her off to a nunnery where she can live out the rest of her days in anonymity.
* Friar Laurence in ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'' also had this plan for Juliet after discovering that Romeo had committed suicide. Juliet commits suicide instead.
* In ''Theatre/TheComedyOfErrors'' Egeon and his wife Emilia were separated at sea during a storm and both think the other had perished. Emilia enters a convent and eventually becomes an abbess (Mother Superior).

* In ''Theatre/PericlesPrinceOfTyre'', Thaisa becomes a nun in the temple of Diana after [[spoiler:she believes her husband and child died at sea. She is wrong, and they are reunited 14 years later thanks to some DivineIntervention]].
* In ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream'', Theseus offers this option to Hermia as an alternative to being executed or marrying Demetrius. She decides to [[TakeAThirdOption Take A Third -- well, fourth -- Option]] and elope with Lysander instead.
* Isabella in ''Theatre/MeasureForMeasure'', a novice in a convent, is left with a choice between marriage to the Duke and becoming a nun at the end of the play. Since her interest in taking her final vows is never shown to waver and Shakespeare gives her no reply to the Duke's proposal, her choice is up to the director (or can be left ambiguous).

* In ''The Saint of Bleecker Street'' by Gian-Carlo Menotti, visionary Annina says she will take the veil one day. She ultimately does, but dies during the ceremony.
* Subverted somewhat by Literature/SisterFidelma; in ancient Ireland monasteries were important places of learning even before Christianity, and it was common for people such as Fidelma to seek the religious life merely for the educational opportunities it offered.

* In the H-Game ''Kango Shicyauzo'', this (retiring to a convent) is [[NunTooHoly Sister]] [[StacysMom Maria]]'s backstory. She took her vows after being widowed and is now the head nun at St. Michael's Nursing School.
* At the end of ''VideoGame/BlazblueCentralFiction'' with the world finally saved both [[spoiler: Noel and Lambda]] become nuns, rebuild Celica's old church, and take care of the [[spoiler: seemingly catatonic Nu.]]
* A post-release ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}'' update allowed "secret" alternate routes for boss fights based on certain actions. In "Sally Stageplay", is is actually possible to ''kill'' the actor playing her husband, leading to Sally becoming a nun and the next stage taking place at a nunnery instead of a suburban household.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Satoko from ''Manga/TheLegendOfMotherSarah'' is a mix between "Vocation" and "Retirement". In a CyberPunk world placed AfterTheEnd and where women [[MenAreTheExpendableGender are not given any protection at all]] from the violent skirmishes between the two opposing military dictatorships Mother Earth and Epoch, a young female war orphan has few choices to escape from certain death or {{Sex Slave}}ry followed by death. Thus, Satoko chose to TurnToReligion as a crutch to put up with the atrocities she has to face day after day and also to remain ''somewhat'' spared since she looks after younger war orphans and works as a war nurse. But, as she finds out later, even this is not enough and her [[NunTooHoly Mother Superior]] makes sure [[SexForServices Satoko and the other nuns understand this thoroughly]].

* Betty Ross Banner did this during Peter David's run on ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'' after believing that the Hulk had been killed by the Leader's gamma bomb. When she learned her husband was indeed alive, she reconciled with him and left the convent.
* ''ComicBook/BatLash'': After their parents are killed, Bat stashes his sister Melissa in a convent for safety while he embarks on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge. When he returns for her after he has killed the men responsible, he finds that she has decided to take vows and stay in the convent rather than return to the farm with him.

* In the fifth alternate ending in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5425367/1/ Five Happily Ever Afters for Juliet Capulet]]'', Juliet is rescued in time but Romeo isn't. Friar Lawrence helps her find solace in her faith, and she takes the veil and eventually becomes an abbess, finding genuine if bittersweet happiness and praying for Romeo's soul.

[[folder:Film]]
* In the movie ''Film/RobinAndMarian'' the middle-aged Robin Hood returns from the crusades to discover Marian has, in his absence, taken holy vows and risen through the ranks of the convent to become the abbess.

* Lucia Santos has become a nun in the very last scene in ''Film/TheMiracleOfOurLadyOfFatima'', where the basilica commemorating her and her cousins' 1917 visions of the Blessed Virgin is opened. The real Lucia did go to a convent school at 13, run by the Dorothean sisters, and later joined their convent; by the time the basilica opened she was 46 and in the enclosed Carmelite order, although she was present at the festival.
* ''Film/{{Novitiate}}'' is about this. Cathleen, feeling a true calling, joins a contemplative order, unfortunately run by a Mother Superior (a bravura performance by Creator/MelissaLeo) who is sadistically controlling and runs the place like a UsefulNotes/{{Cult}}. The girls, expecting rigorous spiritual training, don't know she isn't normal. The lucky ones leave or are kicked out. [[spoiler: At the last possible instant, Cathleen backs out of her perpetual vows.]]
* In the 1923 silent film ''Film/TheWhiteSister'', the heroine (played by Creator/LillianGish) receives word that her OneTrueLove (Creator/RonaldColman) has died, and she then decides to serve as a nun in his memory. [[DisneyDeath Oops, turns out he was still alive.]]

* ''Film/DangerousLiaisons'' follows its source novel (see below) in having Cecile demonstrate two firms of the trope, at the beginning and the end; she was immured by her parents throughout her childhood, to protect her from the world, and after the tragic plot of the film works itself out, she is broken and becomes a nun. Valmont expresses the same opinion of the difficulty of seducing such a sheltered girl, too; "too easy."
* The Australian sex comedy ''Film/AlvinPurple'' (1973) has the CluelessChickMagnet falling in love with the one woman who's immune to his charms. At the end of the movie she becomes a nun, so Alvin gets a job as the gardener at the nunnery to be with her. Where he gets [[NunTooHoly eyed by a lot of appreciative nuns]].

* In Creator/LMMontgomery's ''Literature/EmilyOfNewMoon'', the young Emily writes an epic in which her heroine takes vows because she thought the young man she was in love with had died. She asks a priest whether there's any escape. He asks whether there was a feud between the families and is unsurprised to learn there was; he explains that since the heroine had no siblings, she could get a special dispensation to leave and marry to resolve the feud. Emily is taken aback by the prospect of putting "special dispensation" into verse but gamely tackles it.
* In ''Literature/TheWindInTheWillows'', Mole recounts how the field mice children had put on a play about a sailor who returned from imprisonment and found his sweetheart had become a nun.
* In Creator/GKChesterton's ''Literature/TheReturnOfDonQuixote'', Michael Herne, familiar with the conventions of a romantic novel, tracks down his beloved Rosamund, and the first thing he says is to observe that she is a nurse and not a nun. She tells him she had not given up hope of marriage.
* In ''Literature/TheCountOfMonteCristo'', Mercedes retires to a convent at the end.
* In ''Literature/JaneEyre'', Charlotte Bronte has Jane's cousin Eliza convert to Catholicism so that she can then pack her off to a convent, where she became an abbess. Eliza's motivation seems to have been one of isolation from a world whose disorder and disruptive emotions irritated her.
* In Creator/MadeleineLEngle's ''A Severed Wasp'', an important minor character had entered a convent after her child had died of cancer and she and her husband divorced.
* In Longfellow's ''Evangeline'', the title character became a Sister of Mercy when separated from her betrothed, finally rediscovering him only after he was stricken with illness; he dies in her arms.
* At the end of ''[[Literature/TheRomanMysteries The Colossus of Rhodes]]'', Lupus's mother [[spoiler:dedicates herself to Apollo and becomes a priestess at a temple for him]]. It is in keeping with a vow she made years previously for if her son lived.
* In Japanese period works becoming a nun can be the only way for a woman to get a divorce, or indeed avoid a forced marriage: basically she runs away, retires into a women's monastery, is a Buddhist nun for a set number of years (around 7), and then she's free to go. In one story the male protagonist helped his unhappily married love interest get away from her husband this way and it was all very bittersweet, knowing they could be together 7 years into the future at the earliest.

* In the Literature/{{Deryni}} novels, Rothana Nur Hallaj was introduced as a novice nun who had taken her initial temporary vows for vocational reasons before her convent was attacked by Mearan troops. She met Kelson Haldane in the aftermath of that attack and decided to set aside her vows for him (and another kind of public service as his queen). Things got complicated, and she later takes a place with rediscovered Servants of Saint Camber, partly for the vocation and partly for the shame/heartbreak-induced retirement. Later still, Kelson and Araxie [[spoiler: offer her the number two job at the new ''scola'' to provide an alternative service job outside a convent]].

* In ''Literature/{{Ivanhoe}}'', Rebecca of course does not become a nun, but she does explicitly compare her dedication to a life of good works and prayer when explaining it. It even gets lampshaded when Rowena asks Rebecca whether there are convents or something similar for Jewish women.[[note]]There have been periodic suggestions to create monastic orders for Jewish men and women, but at present, they don't exist.[[/note]]
* Evvy in the Literature/CircleOfMagic book ''Melting Stones'' ends the story promising herself that she'll become a novice in the Living Circle religion--not precisely out of a vocation to serve their gods, but because she believes in their philosophy and wants to be a better person.

* In ''Literature/{{Sharpe}}'s Honour'', the Marquesa gets immured in a convent so she can't contradict the false evidence being used to frame Sharpe.
* In Creator/MadeleineERobins's ''Literature/SoldForEndlessRue'', Laura is urged to take vows before she attends medical school; it would simplify life. [[spoiler:In the end, when Bieta tracks her down, she is indeed wearing the attire of a lay sister, and explains how she came to take vows.]]
* In Margot Benary-Isbert's ''Under The Changing Moon'', the heroine thinks of returning to the convent where she had gone to school. When she writes, the abbess writes back that it looks like an attempt at escape, not a vocation, and furthermore, if she finds obeying her mother irksome, she should remember that she would have to take vows of obedience. When she falls impossibly in love, she concludes that she has no vocation.
* In Creator/PoulAnderson's "Kyrie", the opening paragraph recounts the work of sisters on the moon, and how one of them annually attends a mass she had endowed before joining. The story recounts the events leading to that.
* Creator/PoulAnderson's "The Live Coward" features a GenderFlip and unusual use. Wing Alak defeats Varris in a duel by injecting him with a substance that makes him suggestible. When he is tended for his injuries, he listens to the abbot and takes vows. This makes him legally dead.
* In ''Film/GoneWithTheWind'' (at least in the book), Scarlett's youngest sister, Carreen, becomes a nun after her sweetheart is killed in UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar. The deaths of the O'Hara parents and other war-related trauma probably didn't exactly argue against retreat from the secular world, either.
* In Creator/DorothyLSayers' Literature/LordPeterWimsey novel ''Unnatural Death'', when recounting the Dawson family history, the OldRetainer recounts the story of Mr. Paul with horror: he had fallen in love with the sister of his brother's wife, but she had become a nun, and he had, shockingly enough, become a Catholic and a monk.
* In Creator/KatherinePaterson's ''Of Nightingales That Weep'', after the OldFlameFizzle brings home to her her failure, she goes to the convent to try to take vows with the former Empress. Her confession, however, makes the empress question whether she would really fit in as a nun.
* Creator/RumerGodden's ''In This House of Brede'', about Philippa Talbot, a successful professional woman who well into her forties abandons her life of London sophistication for the Benedictines, an enclosed contemplative order[[note]]It's immediately clear that this is a lively, intelligent, sophisticated congregation, with many creative and practical occupations[[/note]]. She has many reasons, one of which is [[spoiler: the death of her five-year-old son in a highly publicized tragic accident]], a fact that she hides from everyone.
* In Creator/KatherineAddison's ''Literature/TheGoblinEmperor'', there is becoming a votary of this god or that. This is suggested for a woman betrothed but not married to a prince, which means she was detached from her natal family but not attached to her marital one yet. [[spoiler:Also for Maia when conspirators try to force him to abdicate.]]
* In Creator/RogerZelazny's ''Literature/LordOfLight'', Rild, having [[spoiler:failed to assassinate Sam, because he can't after Sam saved his life]], stays with the monks, and after a time, feels a vocation. Sam warns him not to do it out of guilt, but Rild assures him he feels the vocation before donning the saffron robe.

* In "Literature/LoreLay" by Clemens Brentano, the beautiful Lore Lay is accused of witchcraft. The bishop cannot bring himself to sentence Lore Lay to death and instead orders her to become a nun.
* In ''Literature/TheTraitorSonCycle'', by the end of the first book, Amicia decides to take her vows and become a nun, as she feels this is her calling.
* In ''Literature/TheWitchlands'', Evraine explains that she became a monk because she couldn't stand the DecadentCourt her brother the king surrounded himself with, and if she didn't join the Carawen, she's be required to participate in the state duties instead of running around the countryside as a WarriorMonk.
* In ''Literature/WarriorCats'', each Clan has a medicine cat, who serves as TheMedic and the religious leader of their Clan, and who is forbidden to take a mate. Several characters do throughout the series, including POV characters Leafpool, Jayfeather, and Alderheart.

* In one ''Series/FatherBrown'' episode, a woman convicted of murdering her husband has her sentence overturned after Father Brown uncovers evidence that exonerates her. He later realizes that she did in fact kill him, which she confesses was done in desperation because the husband was a vicious {{domestic abuse}}r. Since she's free but knows that she's guilty, she [[TheAtoner atones]] by becoming a nun.

* In Creator/PoulAnderson's "The Live Coward", a GenderFlip and unusual use. Wing Alak defeats Varris in a duel by injecting him with a substance that makes him suggestible. When he is tended for his injuries, he listens to the abbot and takes vows. This makes him legally dead.
* In ''Film/GoneWithTheWind'' (at least in the book), Scarlett's youngest sister, Carreen, becomes a nun after her sweetheart is killed in the CivilWar. The deaths of the O'Hara parents and other war-related trauma probably didn't exactly argue against retreat from the secular world, either.

* Averted in ''Series/CallTheMidwife''. The nuns of Nonnatus House all feel the religious life is their vocation; even [[spoiler:Sister Bernadette, who leaves the Order to get married, is incredibly conflicted, and it's possible she'll have some sort of relationship with the Order later on (potentially as a Third Order sister)]]. On the other hand, Chummy, a devout Anglican, seriously considers joining the Order when [[GrandeDame her mother]] tries to shoot down her plans to marry Constable Peter Noakes; she thinks better of it, and instead marries Peter and takes a six-month trip as a midwife-missionary in Sierra Leone. On the other hand, [[spoiler:Cynthia]], who gave no particular indication of devoutness before this point, ends up coming to the conclusion that she was being called to the religious life, and ended up taking vows.
* ''Series/OneLifeToLive'' Gabrielle Medina runs to a convent to take vows because she's so terrified of her feelings for Max Holden. Him tracking her down and them going at on the grounds of the rectory changed her mind. Years later, Maggie Carpenter is already enrolled in the convent when she meets Max. She abandons her studies to pursue a relationship with him but leaves town to resume them when it falls apart.

* Averted in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' where joining the Adepta Sororitas is anything but a quiet life (they're called the Sisters of Battle for a reason). Essentially the Imperium's SeriousBusiness outlook on religion up a notch, the nuns take to the battlefield in PowerArmor and lots of flame-based weaponry, all the better to burn the heretic, kill the mutant, and purge the unclean with. While there are some Sororitas in non-combat roles, they still serve the Inquisition in some way, like decyphering xenos messages or running the Black Ships that bring potential psykers to Terra for training.

* In ''Theatre/TheComedyOfErrors'' Egeon and his wife Emilia were separated at sea during a storm and both think the other had perished. Emilia entered a convent and eventually became an abbess (Mother Superior).

* One medieval saint hung outside her window holding on with her fingers until her family thought she had fled and then dressed as a man and ran off to get to the convent and escape her ArrangedMarriage.
* ''[[Film/TheSongOfBernadette Bernadette Soubirous]]'', who had eighteen visions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes when she was fourteen, entered a hospice school at 16 and at 22 joined the Sisters of Charity and Christian Instruction. Fictional accounts aside, her own writings show that she wanted to do this, rather than being forced into it. Her friend Antoine Nicolau [[JustFriends really was just a friend]], and in fact was married before the visions began. However, her story codified the Vocation type where seeing the Blessed Mother means the visionary/visionaries have to Take The Veil and die young, preferably of TB. (Bernadette, an ''already'' physically frail girl, died of bone tuberculosis when in her 30's.)

* The cultural trope of Marian visionaries joining a convent/monastery and/or dying young is so codified and ingrained in everyone's minds that visionaries are often criticized or flat-out disbelieved if they stay in the secular world or directly intervene in secular or religious matters. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Calvat Melanie Calvat]], one of the visionaries of La Salette, got lambasted for either trying to intervene in the French state's relationship with the Church, or being used as an UnwittingPawn by conservative politicians. The little visionaries of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Beauraing Our Lady of Beauraing]] were raked over the coals for getting married and having normal family lives. Benedictine scholar Hughes Delogne points out that Mary herself was married, and asked Christ to do his first miracle (water into wine) at a wedding, something a lot of people seem to forget. A priest who'd studied the visitations defended the children and issued a snarky comment about the stereotype causing people to expect all Marian visionaries to follow the same pattern.

* Saint Therese of Lisieux (formerly Marie-Therese Martin), three of her sisters (Pauline, Marie and Leonie) ''and'' one of their cousins (Marie Guerin) became nuns at one point or another. Therese herself had allegedly wanted to do this ever since she was a kid, but she was turned down by the local Carmelite convents for her youth and didn't get her wish granted until she was at least fifteen. Her sister Leonie, learning disabled and likely autistic, became TheDeterminator by entering convent after convent and getting booted out until she finally made a home for herself with the Sisters of the Visitation. Her cause for sainthood was finally turned in in 2015. Today's [[http://cloisters.tripod.com/blherman/ Leonie League and Brother Herman's Eremite Network]] are preparing to form monastic orders expressly for autistic and Down's Syndrome people who feel called to holy service.

* UsefulNotes/CaterinaDeMedici spent about four years immured in various convents as a hostage for the rebels that overthrew her family to use for leverage. Historical fictional accounts of her life usually portray her time in Santissima Annuziata delle Murate as the brightest spot in her turbulent life. (Some of those same accounts also say she briefly became a nun-or at least pretended to do so-to preserve her life after some of the rebels wanted her killed or raped, but that seems to be apocryphal.)

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Alice_of_Battenberg Princess Alice of Battenberg]], [[UsefulNotes/BritishRoyalFamily Prince Philip]]'s mother, took her vows later in life, after her husband's death. She founded a religious order in Greece, and ran an orphanage, sometimes pawning trinkets from her royal past to support the order. She kept up many of her habits from before the religious life, to the puzzlement of many (including her mother, who famously commented, "What can you say of a nun who smokes and plays canasta?"). It was a capstone to a colorful life that included sheltering Jews from Nazis in Athens and being named as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. (Her last years are a main source for a few episodes of ''Series/TheCrown2016'', particularly S02E04 "Bubbikins".)

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Elizabeth_Feodorovna Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna]], sister-in-law to the last Tsar of Russia and aunt to the above mentioned Princess Alice, became an Orthodox nun [[TheMourningAfter after the murder of her husband, Grand Duke Sergei, by an anarchist]]. She became famous for her kindness and charitable works - as well as her physical beauty. In 1918 she, a fellow nun and a group of nobles were subjected to a CruelAndUnusualDeath by the Bolsheviks.[[note]]First they were [[BuriedAlive thrown down a mine shaft]], then [[StuffblowingUp two hand grenades were tossed in after them]]. When Elizabeth and others could still be heard singing Orthodox hymns, [[KillItWithFire the mine was set on fire]]. Even this didn't kill them, as it was later discovered most of the victims died slowly, either from wounds sustained by their being thrown into the mine, or from starvation. Vladimir Lenin paid her a twisted compliment by particularly rejoicing at her death, remarking, "Virtue with the crown on it is a greater enemy to the world revolution than a hundred tyrant tsars."[[/note]]
* One of [[UsefulNotes/JulieDAubigny Julie d'Aubigny's]] lovers was sent away to a convent by her parents (due to homosexuality being frowned upon at the time). Julie entered the convenant and faked her lover's death before running away wtih her.

* ''LightNovel/MariaWatchesOverUs'' takes place in a Catholic school. It's shown in flashbacks that Sei's previous girlfriend left her to become a nun.

[[folder: Anime & Manga]]

* In ''The Saint of Bleecker Street'' by Gian-Carlo Menotti, visionary IllGirl Annina says she will take the veil one day. She ultimately does, but dies during the ceremony.

* ''[[Film/TheSongOfBernadette Bernadette Soubirous]]'', who had eighteen visions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes when she was fourteen, entered a hospice school at 16 and at 22 joined the Sisters of Charity and Christian Instruction. Fictional accounts aside, her own writings show that she wanted to do this, rather than being forced into it. Her friend Antoine Nicolau [[JustFriends really was just a friend]], and in fact was married before the visions began. However, her story codified the Vocation type where seeing the Blessed Mother means the visionary/visionaries have to Take The Veil and die young, preferably of TB. (Bernadette, an ''already'' physically frail IllGirl, died of bone tuberculosis when in her 30's.)

* In ''Film/GoneWithTheWind'' (at least in the book), Scarlett's youngest sister, Carreen, becomes a nun after her sweetheart is killed in the CivilWar.

* Averted in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' where joining the Adepta Sororitas is anything but a quiet life (they're called the Sisters of Battle for a reason). Essentially the Imperium's SeriousBusiness outlook on religion UpToEleven, the nuns take to the battlefield in PowerArmor and lots of flame-based weaponry, all the better to burn the heretic, kill the mutant, and purge the unclean with. While there are some Sororitas in non-combat roles, they still serve the Inquisition in some way, like decyphering xenos messages or running the Black Ships that bring potential psykers to Terra for training.

* The Australian sex comedy ''Film/AlvinPurple'' (1973) has the CluelessChickMagnet falling in love with the one woman who's irresistible to his charms. At the end of the movie she becomes a nun, so Alvin gets a job as the gardener at the nunnery to be with her. Where he gets [[NunTooHoly eyed by a lot of appreciative nuns]].

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Elizabeth_Feodorovna Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna]], sister-in-law to the last Tsar of Russia and aunt to the above mentioned Princess Alice, became an Orthodox nun [[TheMourningAfter after the murder of her husband, Grand Duke Sergei, by an anarchist]]. She became famous for her kindness and charitable works - as well as her physical beauty. In 1918 she, a fellow nun and a group of nobles were subjected to a CruelAndUnusualDeath by the Bolsheviks.[[note]]First they were [[BuriedAlive thrown down a mine shaft]], then [[StuffblowingUp two hand grenades were tossed in after them]], and ''then'' [[KillItWithFire the mine was set on fire]]. Even this didn't kill them, as it was later discovered most of the victims either died of wounds sustained by their fall into the mine, or from starvation. Vladimir Lenin paid her a twisted compliment by particularly rejoicing at her death, remarking, "Virtue with the crown on it is a greater enemy to the world revolution than a hundred tyrant tsars."[[/note]]

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Elizabeth_Feodorovna Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna]], sister-in-law to the last Tsar of Russia and aunt to the above mentioned Princess Alice, became an Orthodox nun [[TheMourningAfter after the murder of her husband by an anarchist, Grand Duke Sergei]]. She became famous for her kindness and charitable works - as well as her physical beauty. In 1918 she, a fellow nun and a group of nobles were subjected to a CruelAndUnusualDeath by the Bolsheviks.[[note]]First they were [[BuriedAlive thrown down a mine shaft]], then [[StuffblowingUp two hand grenades were tossed in after them]], and ''then'' [[KillItWithFire the mine was set on fire]]. Even this didn't kill them, as it was later discovered most of the victims either died of wounds sustained by their fall into the mine, or from starvation. Vladimir Lenin paid her a twisted compliment by particularly rejoicing at her death, remarking, "Virtue with the crown on it is a greater enemy to the world revolution than a hundred tyrant tsars."[[/note]]

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Elizabeth_Feodorovna Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna]], sister-in-law to the last Tsar of Russia and aunt to the above mentioned Princess Alice, became an Orthodox nun and dedicated herself to charity [[TheMourningAfter after the murder of her husband, Grand Duke Sergei]]. But in 1918 she, a fellow nun and a bunch of other nobles were subjected to a CruelAndUnusualDeath by a Red Army group.[[note]]First they were [[BuriedAlive thrown into a mine]], then [[StuffblowingUp two hand grenades were tossed into the pit]], and ''then'' [[KillItWithFire the mine was set ablaze]].[[/note]]