The duality of God, humanity and religion in William Golding's 'Darkness Visible' and John Steinbeck's 'East of Eden'
Abstract
This thesis is an examination of the duality of God, humanity, and
religion as represented in William Golding's Darkness Visible and John
Steinbeck's East of Eden. Particular attention is paid to the tendency of these
two authors to explicate their themes through the juxtaposition, or doubling,
of characters and ideas. In the first chapter, God is discussed in conjunction
with the conventional separation of Old and New Testament identities, as
well as the instances in these novels where the authors' and their characters'
interpretations of the divine nature are differentiated. In the second chapter,
the characters themselves, representing a fictional humanity, are discussed in
relation to their dependence on their doubles for a complete evaluation. In
many instances, there are single personalities with contradicting traits and
behaviours, denoting a further duality within the individual. In the third
chapter, religion, as the worship and attempted imitation of the deity, is given
its own "identity" within these two rewritings of Biblical stories through the
conjunction of different methods of praise and the often contradictory
religious ethics of characters.
Type
Thesis, MPhil Master of Philosophy
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