Ba Jin's Religious Feelings

This paper includes three parts which are introduction, body and conclusion. Introduction has three aspects involved: First, it is a brief introduction to current research on the relationship between modern literature and religion; Second, it gives a carding of the current research on the relationship between Ba Jin and religion; Third, it domenstrates Ba Jin's religious feelings from the geographical surroundings where he grew up, from the religious factors existing in his thoughts and from the religious feelings he expressed in his life practice activities.The body part is composed by three chapters. The first chapter mainly discusses the formation and development of Ba Jin's religious concept and the reasons why he held different attitudes towards religion in different times. This chapter begins with a simple sort of Ba Jin's different orientations to religion in different periods. The analysis goes on by four periods: before May Fourth Movement, from May Fourth Movement to the founding of New China, from the founding of New to the Cultural Revolution and from the ending of the Cultural Revolution to Ba Jin's death. Ba Jin's attitudes towards religion can be concluded from the four periods, which are affirmation—contradiction—remoteness—closeness. Besides, this part analyzes reasons why Ba Jin held different attitudes towards religion from external factors and internal factors.The second chapter mainly discusses the content of Ba Jin's religious feelings. Since Ba Jin's religious feelings were deeply influenced by the concepts of pragmatism, this chapter first introduces philosophy of pragmatism which was very popular during the May Fourth briefly. Then, it will discuss that under the influence of this philosophy, May Fourth intellectuals took the useful aspects of religion that could shape national feelings, and opposed to the inherent dross of religion. Ba Jin received those intellectuals'critical views of religion and formed his own religious feelings from a pragmatic point of view, which could be specially expressed to"great love", spirit of sacrifice to faith and repentance.The third chapter focuses on Ba Jin's religious feelings expressed in his works. Ba Jin created martyrs for the faith and penitents of his own fault in his works. The image of martyrs includes Chen Zhen, Li Ling, Fang Yadan, De,etc. By creating these characters, Ba Jin praised highlythe delication spirit of revolutionary. The image of penitent includes Gao Juexin, Gao Juehui, Yang Mengchi, etc. In addition, Ba Jin did self-examination and confession to his behaviour during the Cultural Revolution in his book called"Random Thoughts". Thus, spiritually, Ba Jin was a penitent himself. He created the image of penitent for the purpose of spiritual enlightenment.The conclusion part discusses the significance of Ba Jin's religious feelings.