On The Change Of The Image Of "God" In The Novels Of Endo Shusaku

Shusaku Endo is one of the most important novelists in the history of modern and contemporary literature in Japan,and also a Christian.As a pioneer of Japanese belief in literature,he wrote a lot of literature on religion,nationality and east-west relations in his life,and Christianity was one of the most important themes throughout his literary career.Endo became a Christian with the influence of his mother and aunt,However,as the body and mind became more and more mature,he began to question the"non-active faith" of Christianity.After entering Keio University,and learnt Europe's Christian literature,Endo realized that there is an insurmountable gap between the Japanese's inherent pantheistic thinking and the belief in monotheistic religious Christianity that has spread from Europe.Throughout his career as a writer,Endo's early,transitional,and late-stage work themes,especially the image of "God" depicted in the work and the relationship between "God" and the Japanese have changed significantly.In the early works of Endo,"God" appeared as the father's image to adjudicate human sin,gradually turned to the image of "the maternal goddess accompany human" in the transitional works,at last,the image of "full of motherhood,give love and redemption" has been transformed.But the study of the transformation of the image of "God" and its causes is not yet systematic in his works.This paper use text analysis to study the image of "God" in Endo's novels.Based on the relationship between God and the Japanese people,the axis is gradually drawn,and the time is used as the clue to select the representative works at different periods of Endo,to study his changes of understanding the image of "God" during his career as a writer,discuss the relationship between the image of "God" and the Japanese,and study the causes of his change both objectively and subjectively.Through the study,it can be seen that the "God" in the novels of Endo has undergone a transformation from "paternal to maternal,from human to spirituality".This shift took place not only because of Endo's personal life experience,the history of the Second World War,but also comes from the subjective initiative of Endo,who has triple identities as Japanese.Endo intended to transform the image of "God" in traditional Christianity through literary creation,making it more easily accepted by the Japanese and more suitable for the cultural environment of Japan.