Desert And Spring Of Love

Francois Mauriac (1885-1970), a renowned French writer in 20th century, acquired Nobel literary prize in 1952. In the modern French literary circles where modernism appeared as a dark horse, he set his own banner with his realistic creation. Though there are many works studying him at abroad, the study on him is just starting in our country. This paper tries to investigate his creation from the view of his religious idea, and thus masters Mauriac and his theme of creation comprehensively.Mauriac was born in a rich capitalistic family in Berdo. Since his father died young, he grew up with his mother and grandmother who believed in Catholicism very much, and so he was affected by their religious thoughts. He read in church school until high school was finished. Religious idea was deeply ingrained in his mind, becoming not only the kernel of his world outlook, but also the master principle he followed in his realistic creation. Therefore, he was usually called Catholic writer, but he called himself "a Cathlic that writes novels" instead.From the view of original sin and salvage of Christianity, Mauriac thought the realistic world was cruel and ugly, full of crime and misfortune. In his novels, he mercilessly revealed the "secrets of crime and evil" in capitalistic families, where moral was ruined and only material desire was left. People were suspicious, jealous, hating each other and difficult to communicate, forming a "desert of love". "Desert of Love", the name of one of his medium-length novels, summarized vividly the core contents of his works. Mauriac concluded the reasons causing the social phenomenon as loss of God and love in the modern society, meanwhile, he considered God and love as the "spring" in the "desert". Through restore of God and love, human being could be free with their spirits salvaged. "Desert and spring of love" became the master melody in Mauriac's creation.From the view of original sin in Christianity, Mauriac described all kinds of "crime" and "wickedness". First of all, he revealed the greed and strong desire for money and property of the capitalism. Secondly, he exposed all the weakness and evil in human personality, such as selfishness and the sin and evil coming from it, like greed, jealousy, mean, hypocrisy, viciousness, etc. Thirdly, he criticized hypocrisy of religion. In addition, he considered lust, which couldnot be restrained by human being as utmost sin.Mauriac also exposed the spiritual torment and pains that the crimes and wickednessbrought to them. They were lingering about in the "desert of love" lonely and melancholy with strong feeling of guilt in their heart. The causes, of course, include the superficial layer of social reasons, and the psychological factors in the deep layer. According to the psychological analysis of Freud, the conflict of actual self and excessive self leads to pains of human spirit, while severe depression of excessive self over actual self causes unbosom of actual self and thus becomes the psychological source of crime and evil. While in the opinion of the analysis psychology of Rongge, excessive persuit to material profit and over expansion of personality mask results in biased development of human spirit and split personality, which blocks in the way of one's individuality forming, and finally makes the "shadow" casted outward and people fall in sin and evil.From the salvage view of Christanity, Mauriac let the offenders in his novels all converted to God at last, broke away from misery with their spirits salvaged. He considered sin as the premise for spirits to be salvaged. It was sin that connected the offender and God together. Meanwhile, he thought "God is love", and only through love, salvage could be accomplished. Love was "the spring in desert".Mauriac is not the kind of religious writer in general meaning. His works are full of suffering conciousness expressing that the writer wants to rescue human beings. His idea of "original sin" and "salvage" reflects his high social responsibility and spirit of criticism. On the...