Writing Belief:Religious Elements In Marilynne Robinson’s Fiction

Marilynne Robinson is one of the few American writers whose first novel was canonized after its publication and won her national fame. Robinson is a devout Christian. Though writing in the age of postmodernism, she persists in defending her religious belief in her works. Exploring in detail the relationship between man and God, man and nature, and man and his fellow creatures, Robinson has called for the return to American traditional value and exerted a great influence on contemporary American culture. Robinson’s literary writing is full of religious rhetorics such as Christian typology, religious naming, and transcendental metaphors, which all echo the religious themes of her novels.This dissertation conducts a thorough examination in the religious elements of Robinson’s fiction and argues that the Mainline Protestant belief has an overwhelming impact on Robinson’s literary production; her writing bears a strong mark of religious salvation. The key to understand Robison’s works is to know the interaction between her literary writing and her religious belief.Meanwhile, this dissertation places Robinson’s novels under the scrutiny of religious dimensions of contemporary American fiction, trying to show the significance of contemporary American fiction in building up American national identity, thus intensify current American literature study in China.This dissertation first outlines the relationship between Christian belief and American literature, and argues that Robinson’s religious thoughts have come from three major sources including Calvinist ideology, Transcendentalist thoughts, and contemporary Christian Feminist Theology. As a mainline Protestant and contemporary classic writer, Robinson has committed herself to the task of reconstructing American national identity. She has already become a leading figure in the current turn of new humanism. Then the dissertation, based on the study of Robinson’s religious thoughts, carries out a study on the relationship between man and nature, sin and salvation, and individuals and home, the three religious themes in her novels. On the study of the religious rhetotrics, with the inspiration of Northrop Frye’s holistic examination of Biblical Rhetorics, the dissatation discusses the intertexuality of Robinson’s fiction and the Bible, foucusing on Robinson’s employment of typology, religious naming, and biblical metaphors in her novels. In addition, female characters in Robinson’s works are also analyzed from the perspective of Christian Feminist Theology, and this dissertaion argues that Robinson’s literary career synchronizes the development of modern Christian feminist theology.In conclusion, writing is a specific way of Robinson’s religious practice. There is a unique "mutual interpretation" between her literary expression and her religious belief. The canonization of Robinson’s works reflects the changing criteria in contemporary American literature and literary criticism. Robinson combines her observation of the material world with sacred religious perception, and calls for the return to American national spirit, which explains well her repute as a contemporary American mainstream classic writer.