Religion and the Church in the Modern Novel

     File under "I Don't Stay Within Lines Very Well" when it comes to school stuff...the thinking-box you're expected to stay in breaks easily. This was for a Study of the Novel at Rogers State University.

     "One of the themes in most, though not all, of the novels discussed in during class this semester has been the importance (or lack) of religion in the main characters’ lives. Except for Sense and Sensibility and The Great Gatsby, I think every other novel studied has had an element of religion in some way or another.

Craig Thompson in Blankets, Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce’s Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man and Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin’s Awakening all explicitly reject the church while chasing their artistic dreams (Thompson 545-560; Joyce 174-79; Chopin 30). There are positive portrayals of faith in Albert Camus’ Stranger in the forms of the magistrate and the priest (Camus 66-71, 115-122). The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, has rare but profound moments focusing on the church and religion; most characters share Harris’s sentiment that cathedrals may be remarkable, but “[he’s] not much on those type of places” (Hemingway 133). Jake admits that though he is a rotten Catholic, and it was a grand religion, maybe he would do better next time (Hemingway 103). For the black communities in James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On the Mountain and Toni Morrison’s Sula, the local church and God are as much a part of life as food, sex and death (Morrison 90). Further, the residents of the Bottom let nothing keep them from their God (Morrison 150).

     Given the Soviet-controlled setting of Czechoslovakia at the time of Milan Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being, it is understandable that religion would not figure much of a role in characters’ lives. Tomas is skeptical of his son Simon’s faith, seeing believers as “clairvoyants” and wondering whether Simon “joined the church to oppose the regime or if he really believes in God” (Kundera 310). However, the narrator does mention Biblical passages throughout the work, such as Moses’ rescue from the river, Jesus’ crucifixion and the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 1:28, Adam and Eve were told to “Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves along the ground” (New International Version). Tereza is following that command in taking care of the heifers and as she and Tomas are dealing with Karenin’s death (Kundera 284-303). Why does Karenin’s death have such an impact on us as readers? As the narrator states, “animals were not expelled from Paradise” (Kundera 298). As such, they can love with “a completely selfless love”, without asking for anything in return (Kundera 297). The narrator talks quite a lot about lightness or weight; never really coming to a satisfactory conclusion about which is better. Philosopher G.K. Chesterton explains his views on this matter in an essay entitled “The Eternal Revolution”, from his 1908 book Orthodoxy. The pride of the Fall results in a selfish seriousness, while it takes effort to reach a happy self-forgetfulness (Chesterton 128). Dogs accomplish this naturally; which is why we love them so much. As Chesterton writes, “It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than it is to write a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light.” (128). As Ralph C. Wood writes in his article “Orthodoxy at a Hundred”, Chesterton “treats the most serious things in the lightest manner, probing depths when he appears to be skating on surfaces” (Wood 40).

     The Sun Also Rises and Blankets both quote from Ecclesiastes several times, Sun takes its title and theme from Ecc. 1:4-7, which also serves the book’s preface. Craig stumbles over Ecc. 2:22-24 and 5:19, not understanding the context surrounding those verses (Thompson 546-551). In those pages his pastor suggests that the Bible needs a “growth process”, which Craig is rightfully horrified by. Ideally, he would have turned to 1 Timothy 3:16-17 in response, but instead his faith crumbles and he moves to Milwaukee as soon as possible (Thompson 551). Because of the natural solemnity of mankind and our colossal insignificance as created beings (Job 38:4-40:2), as Solomon noted, our days are “meaningless, chasing after the wind” (Ecc. 2:11). Hemingway’s characters understood this, as Jig in his short story “Hills Like White Elephants” comments that “everything tastes of licorice” (Fifth Column 372).

     Morrison’s novel Sula details very strange occurrences in an offhand manner, much like most events in the book of Genesis. Eva’s burning of Plum is similar to Cain’s murder of Abel (Morrison 45-48, Genesis 4:2-16). Carolyn M. Jones, in an essay for Indiana State University’s African American Review, writes that Cain sinned, yes, but more than that, he refused to mourn for the harm his sin caused on others. At Chicken Little’s funeral, Nel tries to justify to herself that she had “done nothing” to bring about his death, and the black people do not feel the victim was Chicken; rather, they felt themselves the victim (Morrison 65). Eva later says Nel and Sula are just alike, “never was no difference between you” (Morrison 169). Sula also wandered like Cain, but neither was killed by the hands of others.

     The characters in Baldwin’s book are hypocrites; it’s a very ironical novel. As Florence tells Gabriel, “You better stop trying to blame everything on Elizabeth and look to your own wrongdoings” (Baldwin 48). In Part Two, “The Prayers of the Saints”, while the characters are supposedly in prayer, they’re really thinking of their histories, which is how we as readers learn the family’s backstory. Sally Higbee wrote in her critical response to the book: “I’m thinking, ‘Wait a minute…this doesn’t sound like a prayer!’…I realized that I pray in a very similar fashion…The actual prayer is composed of story…My heart cries out as I experience these stories” (Higbee 51). This seems like an accurate, if uncomfortable to consider, human reaction. John has his spiritual experience, yes, but it feels inauthentic (Baldwin 224-263). There is too much irony, hopelessness and destruction with good intentions laden throughout the tale that we are more inclined to believe that his thoughts in the city, “If it’s wrong, I can always climb back up”, are more honest in speaking of his end, because “these glories were unimaginable – but the city was real” (Baldwin 32). In an article for The Classical Teacher, Martin Cothran explains what such irony does to students and audiences: Students no longer believe stories told at face value, because it seems too idealistic and unsophisticated to do so (Cothran 51). Cothran then goes on to explain that irony has been around since the Greek dramatists, only that irony – both destructive and sympathetic forms – were subordinate to the epics of Homer, which had no irony at all. If everything has a hidden meaning, there can no longer be a hero, which is disheartening. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is, according to Cothran, the only epic literature in the last hundred years, “and the only reason it exists in the modern world at all is because it is not modern. It is of another time – a time in which greatness was acknowledged” (Cothran 53).

     Because of this attitude towards life, where nothing is absolute, there are few things seen as sacred and everything can be seen through, I would say that accounts for the rather negative-to-ambivalent portrayal of religion and the church that is common in most modern novels. There are exceptions, such as superhero films, that still promote heroism and taking events at face value, but they are rare. There are ways to combat this attitude, but that would be material for another paper. For now, for the first steps in righting this viewpoint, the best advice I have is suggest studying Chesterton’s essay, also found in Orthodoxy, entitled “The Ethics of Elfland”, on the power and vital importance of fairy tales."     

Works Cited

Baldwin, James. Go Tell It On the Mountain. 1952. New York: Vintage International, 2013. Print. 

The Holy Bible, New International Version. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1978. Print.

Camus, Albert. The Stranger. 1942. Trans. Matthew Ward. New York: Vintage International, 1989. Print.

Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. 1899. New York: Avon Books, 1972. Print.

Chesterton, G.K. “The Eternal Revolution”, Orthodoxy. 1908. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995. Print.

Cothran, Martin. “The ‘Demon Irony’.” The Classical Teacher, Memoria Press. Late Summer 2014. pp 50-53. Web. 20 April 2015.

Higbee, Sally. “A Reader’s Response to Go Tell It On the Mountain.” The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English. 2:1 (1 January 2000) pp 49-56. University of South Carolina. Web. 20 April 2015.   

Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills Like White Elephants”, The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories, 1927. New York: Scribner, 1938. Print.

----------------, The Sun Also Rises. 1926. New York: Scribner, 2006. Print.

Jones, Carolyn M. “Sula and Beloved: Images of Cain in the Novels of Toni Morrison”. African American Review. 27:4 (Winter 1993): pp 615-626. Web. 19 April 2015.

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. 1914. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. Print. 

Morrison, Toni. Sula. 1973. New York: Vintage International, 2004. Print.

Thompson, Craig. Blankets. Marietta, Georgia: Top Shelf Productions. 2003. Print.

Wood, Ralph C. “Orthodoxy at a Hundred”. First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion & Public Life. 187(2008). pp 39-43. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 April 2015.