Rethinking Catholicism:the Changes Of Attitudes Towards Religion In David Lodge’s Novels

David Lodge is a prominent Catholic novelist and literary critic in the contemporaryera. He has written dozens of works, including sixteen novels and fourteen books ofliterary criticism together with many academic papers. He has combined his fiction writingwith his literary criticism. Study on Lodge and his works at home and abroad starts fromthe1980’s. The study of Lodge’s novels in China mainly concentrates on his modes ofwriting, that is, modernism, postmodernism and anti-modernism, while paying littleattention to his Catholic novels and the changes of his attitudes towards religion.Chronologically, Lodge’s Catholic novels are divided into three parts. Thisdissertation takes his three Catholic novels (The British Museum Is Falling Down1965,How Far Can You Go?1980, Paradise News1991) as the objects, trying to explore thetrack of the changes of his religious attitudes. The investigation shows that there is a clearline of his changing attitudes towards Catholicism, that is, his exploration, question,criticism and finally affirmation of the humanism in Catholicism.The dissertation is composed of four chapters. Chapter one is a short introduction toLodge’s life, his fiction writing and the study on him at home and abroad. The problemsabout the study on Lodge are analyzed here as well. Chapter two provides the informationof religious background in the wake of Vatican Council Ⅱ, especially focusing on theproblems of sex and death. Chapter three is the main body of the dissertation. This chapterdeals with three themes, that is, faith crisis, sex problem and death problem by analyzingclosely the three Catholic novels. The protagonists in the three different Catholic novelsdemonstrate that there is something unreasonable in Catholic Church’s teachings. TheCatholics in the modern and changing world explore, question and criticize the Church’steachings. They also exert themselves to probe into an effective way to reform the Catholic.The value of humanism is highlighted in their exploration. Lodge rethinks the faithproblem of the confused Catholics and attempts to provide an effective way, namely,humanism for them. Humanism, as a faith, gives the confused Catholics consolation andhope. Chapter four sums up the efforts of Lodge’s exploration and reiterates the importance of his rethinking about religion and his attempt to find a humanistic solutionfor the confused Catholics.