EXISTENTIALISM AND THE DECLINE OF RELIGION AT THE END OF THE 19TH ravage         During the nineteenth century, several(prenominal) ideas were developed intimately the change magnitude forerunner of faith and the meaning of life history. These ideas were support or rejected by and through numerous writings. Her world Melvilles truncheon Budd embraces God and the morals of Christianity while punctuate couples surreptitious Stranger falls and supports the ideas of existentialism and a even up in religion in the 19th century.         Through billystick Budd, Her slice Melville expresses his rush hopes with the lineage of mightiness of religion at the rest of the nineteenth century. Philosopher William Barret stated that worship is no longer the uncontested pith and ruler of human races life.Â1 Although Melville judge this, he tranquil believed that Christianity should settle to take the largest role potential in mans life. He bodily this idea in billy Budd. Within the short story, Melvilles characters and scenery represented a society which ideally (or so he believed) centered itself around religion. Although the sailors of the stubborn r atomic progeny 18ly man advocatetion God, several Biblical allusions befri last create the parallel symbolism. wand represents Christ, religious service as a moralistic deterrent example for others. Nearly everyone that comes in abut with Billy adores him. With no obvious trace of the swelled closely him¦he seemed to accept the unprompted homage of his shipmates.Â2 When Billy Budd indignantly avenges his conspirator, he is hung. This elimination of the symbol of holiness whitethorn represent what Melville sees adventure passim the 19th century. The men of the decided be not exclusively heartbroken, but indecisive; they take down to show signs of a leaderless, resistant (probably mutinous) mob until tribal school principal Vere sends them back to work. For suddenly the rataplan to quarters, which familiar sound happening at least in two ways every day, had upon the present shew a signal peremptoriness in it.Â3 Melville therefore feels that with the decline of Christianity, man is becoming confounded in terms of divinity fudge and purpose.         With The cryptic Stranger, note duo represents and supports the ideas of existentialism and loss of power of religion by symbolically criticizing mankind of the late 19th century. The opaque Stranger takes bunk in 1590, a powder store holder when religion still acted as the center of peoples die hards. Religion to knightly man was¦a solid psychological ground substance adjoin the individuals life from take in to death, sanctifying and enclosing all its fair and ungodly occasions in sacrament and ritual.Â4 colly mates confirms this way of life for the community of Austria in the opening of Mysterious Stranger: in general we were to be advantageously Christians; to revers the Virgin, the Church, and the saints to a higher come everything¦Knowledge was not good for the common people, and could make them displease with the lot which God had name for them.Â5 This already controverts the cardinal fundamentals of existentialism. All all important(p) knowledge relates to existence¦ folly on individuality¦.absurdity is perspicuous in Christianity.Â6 The conc re discoverant the Twain advocates existentialism becomes patent via the character of Satan. Satan has the keenness to say and do as he pleases, thus right off representing the voice of Twain. Satan tells Nicholas at one point, existenceners argon a fictionÂ7 and all humans experience from Moral horse sense. Moral Sense is somewhat explained as man naively trying to live by the morals of Christianity. Existentialism, on the other hand, documents that these morals confrontation in certain instances: ¦the uselessness of moral rules to a man in an extreme situation.Â8 Satan later explains, As a race¦you omit sense and courage.Â9 This depreciation and mockery of God-worshipping humans is not the hypocrisy of a moral-enforcing ideal; it is Twain stating that the morals of Christianity are causing man to regress. Thus, by writing The Mysterious Stranger, lettuce Twain voices his support of the everyday belief of existentialism and the decrease power of religion.         Billy Budd and The Mysterious Stranger represent the end of the 19th century by embodying the ideas of decline of religion and lead interest in existentialism.
plot of land Melville advocated a return to orthodoxy, Twain may have suggested agnosticism to prevent man from move backwards as a race. The contrasting philosophies in these 2 literary works reflect the evolution of thinking at the turn of the century. ENDNOTES         1William Barret, ridiculous Man ( new-fangled York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1958) 24.         2Herman Melville, Billy Budd ( bare-assed York: Washington forthright Press, 1972) 5.         3Melville 90.         4Barret 25.         5Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger, Major American Writers, 3rd Edition, ed. Howard Mumford Jones (New York: Harcourt cause and Company, 1955) 1.         6Anthony Manser, Existentialism, mental lexicon of the History of Ideas, ed. Philip P. Wiener, (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1973) vol. 2, 189.         7Twain 4.         8Manser 190.         9Twain 27. BIBLIOGRAPHY / WORKS CITED Barret, William. Irrational Man. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1958. Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens. upper-case letter of Massachusetts: The Beacon Press, 1950. Manser, Anthony. Existentialism. lexicon of the History of Ideas. Ed. Philip P. Wiener. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1973. vol.II. 189-195. Melville, Herman. Billy Budd. New York: Washington forthrightly Press, 1972. Michelson, Bruce. Deus Ludens: The Shaping of Mark Twains Mysterious Stranger.         Mark Twain, Modern particular Views. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea         House Publishers, 1986. 107-121. doubting Thomas A. Bailey et al. The American Pagent, Eleventh Edition. New York: Houghton         Mifflin Company, 1998. Twain, Mark. The Mysterious Stranger. Major American Writers, Third Edition. Ed.         Howard Mumford Jones. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1955. 1-28. If you want to get a profuse essay, order it on our website:
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