The Study Of Spiritual Predicament In Gide's Narrative Works

AndréPaul Guillaume Gide (1869-1951), a French litterateur and ideologist in the 19th century. He had created numerous works during his life, and these works are the monument of French contemporary literature. The main narrative works of Gide are < ''L'Immoraliste''>, < Fälscher, Die >, < La Porte É troite>, < La Symphonie Pastorale>, , the prose and poetry anthology , theatre of the absurd , . The tone of Gide's writing was fresh and delicate, the profound thinking in his works indicated his thought about humanity and the society.This article studied on the spiritual predicament through analyzing Gide's works. The spiritual predicament in his narrative works focused on the contradiction between the religious asceticism and individual instinct desire. In this irreconcilable contradiction, the characters in his works were always deep in anxiety and the stories were sad. But in general, personal desire was still the most outstanding part in his works. And the personal desire was not that simple in Gide's narrative works, he unfolded the two different sexual orientations in the flesh of characters. On the one hand, the first sexual orientation is"emphasis on love and restrain sex"in the sex between male and female; on the other hand, the second one is the separation of love and sex in the male homosexuality. Though this analysis and study, we can find out some human natural problems and the unfavorable situation, which are the modernity spiritual dilemma produced when people are facing the sudden series of changes in the first beginning of the 19th century. This includes belief crisis and the rise and expansion in capitalism culture. Therefore, this article attempts to acknowledge the spiritual state of people living in that era through analyzing Gide's works, and at the same, this article is going to understand people's spiritual state in that time and has great worth to the research of Gide's works.This article is divided into three chapters: In the first chapter, this paper discussed the contradiction between the religious asceticism and the strong personal instinct desire, and through analyzing these two features, it revealed that the contradiction is irreconcilable. The second chapter analyzed the sexual orientation perplexity in the characters'desire, one aspect is the"emphasis on love and restrain sex"in the relationship of male and female, the other aspect is the"separation of love and sex"in male homosexuality. The third chapter talked about the reasons caused the spiritual dilemma in his narrative works through analyzing the life of Gide and the features in his creative works, and the study on the relation between his own experience and his works; in addition, this article researched on the influence of western contemporary irrationalism to Gide's work. In Gide's narrative works, the pursuit of desire represented the culture of irrationalism. His thought has led the great power of anti-asceticism in the religious perception, and this has caused the spiritual predicament in his work in the objective way.