Writing and Religion
Does one’s faith (or lack thereof) impact the literary merit or the quality of his/her writing?
Flannery O'Connor is one of the most acclaimed Christian writers of all time, and with her most famous piece of writing, her short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” she is sometimes regarded as one of the best female writers. Her literary merit is virtually undeniable, as she is recognized as one of the greats by many scholars and bookworms.
O’Connor’s Christian faith is plain and clear in the majority, if not all of her works. And by plain and clear, I mean that it’s sometimes overbearing, and, in my opinion, condescending towards all writers other than herself. O’Connor has a knack for coming off cocky and conceited, as she does in her essay “The Nature and Aim of Fiction,” where she essentially states that those who are not really good at writing should not even try, and that the reason that she writes is simply because she is good at it. But the piece of writing by O’Connor that I find most unsettling is her essay “The Fiction Writer and His Country.” Specifically the following two quotes: |
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So when I say “greatest writers of all time,” I can almost guarantee that the first name that popped into many of your heads was The Bard, William Shakespeare. Mine too. For the purpose of this essay however, we won’t delve too deep into his religious beliefs, simply because we don’t really know them. Scholars have a murky view into certain aspects of his personal life—religious faith being one of those aspects. (However, if you’d like to know more about what scholars believe Shakespeare’s religious views to be, I give a little insight as well some personal opinion in the audio recording to the right.)
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“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby “I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self respect. And it's these things I'd believe in, even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all she should be. I love her and it is the beginning of everything.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald, excerpted from a letter to his daughter Things are sweeter when they’re lost. I know–because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned |
A google search for “the greatest novel of all time” yields a photo of two sad-looking eyes, a tear-drop, and red lips set to a dark backdrop with a green flicker of light towards the bottom of the cover. Yes, you guessed it: The Great Gatsby. There’s little debate about the literary merit of this novel (and even that is a pretty extreme statement, because I’ve personally never heard anyone debate that this novel isn’t good at the very least). Even when you broaden the scope and look at all the works by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tender is The Night, The Beautiful and Damned, This Side of Paradise), it’s hard to argue that he lacks literary merit. So now we must ask the question: what are his religious views?
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"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." -Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
"Mockingbirds don't do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corn cribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." -Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
And though he himself may not be regarded as one of the greatest writers of all time, Harper Lee’s longtime best friend Truman Capote holds his own literary merits, such as his invention of the non-fiction novel, with his release of In Cold Blood in 1966. In a letter written to Perry Smith (one of the murderers highlighted in the novel), Capote writes of his own religious beliefs: “I belong to no churches and am not a “Believer” in any formal sense. At one time I was very interested in Oriental religions, and felt, and still somewhat feel, that it might be possible for me to accept Buddhism, perhaps because it is really more a [unclear] than a religion.”
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If someone asked me who my favorite author was, one of the first names that pops into my head (behind Shakespeare, of course) is Robert Louis Stevenson. His novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is by far one of my favorite pieces of literature and has captured my attention since my first read of it about two years ago. It is a fairly popular book, along with his other well-known novel Treasure Island. Story has it that at the age of twenty-three, after being raised in a very religious home (his grandfather was a minister), Stevenson declared to his parents that he no longer believed in God. Though he might have been a disappointment to his parents and the rest of his family, he did not disappoint the literary world as his writings are well-liked, or even loved, to this very day.
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“Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm. ” -Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde “You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others...” -Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
“Alas," said Aslan, shaking his head. "It will. Things always work according to their nature. She has won her heart's desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it.” -C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew, The Chronicles of Narnia |
“PIPPIN: I didn't think it would end this way. |
My Own Thoughts on the Table Above (Audio) | |
File Size: | 3803 kb |
File Type: | m4a |
The name that draws my attention the most is probably Elie Wiesel, who can be found under the category of writers who identify as Agnostic. Anybody who has ever read his novel Night certainly cannot deny its attention to the grotesque. He outlines the horrors of his actual experiences in concentration camps like Auschwitz and Buchenwald during the Holocaust. The book even outlines how Weisel loses his faith in God and becomes horrified by the ways of humanity. Yet, O’Connor’s claim is that the Christian writer will have a better eye for such a “perverse” thing. Elie Wiesel and his stellar ability to capture his experiences the way he does in Night, are both proof enough to suggest that O’Connor’s statement is not only blatantly offensive, but just plain wrong.
“In the beginning there was faith - which is childish; trust - which is vain; and illusion - which is dangerous.” -Elie Wiesel, Night |
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My Final Thoughts (Audio) | |
File Size: | 1556 kb |
File Type: | m4a |