An Exploration Of Post-Secularism In The English Patient And Anil’s Ghost

Post-secularism originates from the reflection on secularism.Due to the Enlightenment’s admiration for reason,secularization has continued to accelerate throughout the world,followed by the admiration of technology,nationalism,and democratic countries,accompanied by the absence of religion.However,the two world wars,continuous regional conflicts and terrorist attacks in the 20th century have written an indictment with blood for the side effects of secularism.Therefore,theorists have picked up religion again as a good medicine to solve the anxiety of human existence,however,"religion" in the context of post-secularism is deinstitutionalized and deideologized.Michael Ondaatje is one of the most famous writers in Canada today.He was born in Sri Lanka,where Buddhism is the main belief,but he himself is a Catholic.He once lived in the United Kingdom and then moved to Canada,so he has always lived in a multi-religious cultural environment.Religious culture has also become a very distinctive feature in his novels.His The English Patient won the British Booker Prize.The novel involved a lot of religious elements and teachings of Catholicism and Sikhism.And his Anil’s Ghost directly describes the bloody and violent conflict between Buddhism and Hinduism in Sri Lanka,and involves a lot of Buddhist culture,history and rituals in the novel In Ondaatje’s writings,religion always plays an important role,but it surpasses traditional religion and presents an inter-religious post-secularism attitude.Therefore,from the perspective of post-secularism,this thesis takes the religious culture in Ondaatjes novels as the research object,and uses the theory of community and post-secularism to study how Ondaatje constructs the ideal post-secularism at the text level,and seeks to solve the problem of secularism.Possibilities for the ism dilemma.The first chapter of the dissertation reveals the specific manifestations of the realistic dilemma encountered by secularism in The English Patient and Anil’s Ghost.The dilemma of secularism is mainly manifested in Ondaatje’s works:war,violent conflict and misunderstanding of the "other".Secularism in different countries has different development status.In European and American countries,the two world wars have verified the side effects of technology and democratic countries that secularism advocates.In Sri Lanka,however,secularism has encountered even greater challenges.Traditional religions have entered secular life,triggering extremely bloody violent conflicts.In addition,both the national community and the cultural community constructed under secularism have aggravated the misunderstanding of the "other".Community determines a person’s identity,which includes both national identity and religious identity,and the establishment of identity boundaries becomes the biggest obstacle to harmonious coexistence with others.The second chapter of the thesis starts from solving the dilemma of secularism,and explores how Ondaatje uses religious emotion and aesthetics to transcend secularism and break the traditional boundaries between "I" and "other".In The English Patient and Anil’s Ghost,on the one hand,Ondaatje erased the boundaries of specific sects by means of aestheticizing religion,so as to realize the universalization of religious aesthetics;on the other hand,he realize the piousness of religious beliefs and secularize the rituals of religious beliefs,so as to create a multi-religious world and realize the transcendence of traditional communities.The third chapter of the thesis discusses the significance of Ondaatje’s exploration of post-secularism.Ondaatje’s exploration of post-secularism solves the problem of how to construct a community without boundaries,that is,to have a"religious" selfless love for others,and because he believes in the "absolute future",he can love "others" selflessly.Ondaatje healed emotional wounds with religious aesthetics,and called for the emergence of an "emotional community" with religious emotions.In the ending,this paper first summarizes the viewpoints of the full text,and then pays attention to Ondaatjes post-secularism exploration with its experimental and limited characteristics.It is thought that this is due to the different degrees of development of secularism in different countries and the influence of post-secularism on religion and secularism.The attitude has not yet been completely and definitively determined.