“God giveth and God taketh away”: Violence and Religion in Sir Isumbras
Violence is an important topic in many medieval narratives, especially those concerning travel. Sir Isumbras, written in the fourteenth century, is a travel narrative about a wealthy man, Sir Isumbras who is travelling to the Holy Land to atone for his sins of pride. Throughout his journey, Sir Isumbras and his family come into contact with many different varieties of violence, ranging from war to kidnapping. While the purpose of the narrative is to atone for sins and make it to the Holy Land, the plot would be nothing if it were not for the violence acts that were splattered across the story. In turn, violence and religion seem to go hand in hand throughout many narratives,
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including in Sir Isumbras. Violence in Sir Isumbras morphs and motivates the travel experience, continuously intertwining religion. Without violence and the ever present religious implications, the story as we know it would not exist, and would make for a less than interesting narrative. The story’s first act of violence is not something many would consider overtly aggressive, however, is violent all the same. Violence, in this instance, gets the narrative going, creating an interesting and necessary plot. Sir Isumbras and his family are stripped of their wealth and power in some violent manners. His horse suddenly dies from underneath him and his “buildings have caught fire and most of [his] men are dead, [his] manor is destroyed and there is no one left alive at [his] hall except for [his] wife and [his] children” (Sir Isumbras). His whole life is ripped from him through death and destruction. While this destruction is not directed at Sir Isumbras’ physical being, it affects him in multiple ways. By the end of the first section, Isumbras is left with nothing but his family. He is forced to leave and make his pilgrimage to the holy land and is forced to become a beggar. However, it is important to make note that Sir Isumbras asked for his destruction. Given a choice by God, he chose to be sent into “poverty in my youth” and have “a comfortable life in my old age.” Unknowing to him however, being sent into poverty would be equivocated with violence. Throughout this whole section however, Sir Isumbras seems to be at terms with the violence and destruction because his family is safe with him and this violence is God’s will. Throughout the rest of the narrative, Sir Isumbras and his family are introduced to many violent acts, however some are definitely more extreme than others.
And again, many are justified by explaining them as the will of God. All three of Sir Isumbras’ children are taken away by wild animals not returning until the end of the narrative when Isumbras finally makes it to the Holy land. His wife is later taken hostage by a heathen King. Again, connecting religion and violence, Sir Isumbras and wife would have been saved from violence had they renounced their faith and God. Since they did not, violent acts were committed. When the Sultan commanded to have Isumbras’ wife, Isumbras again returns to violence and exclaims “'I will not sell you my wife! You will have to kill me first! I married her in the sight of God and vowed to remain with her until my dying day, in sickness and in health.” He again connects religion and violence in the way that he would have to be killed in order to break any vow he made with God. Every character, at least once, experiences some form of violence, either by causing the violence themselves or acting as a victim of the violence. At the end of the narrative there is a war against the “heathen” people, the Saracens, for who is going to rule the Holy Land. The Sultan had been “rampaging around Christendom, causing mayhem and destruction everywhere” and violence ensued. The two groups, Christians verses Saracens would “meet one another in deadly struggle.” Even if a war is not needed and the story could go on without it, it makes for an interesting and highly entertaining plot. Violence, for a reader, is entertaining, despite what people like to
believe. Violence really projects the story and in a way motivates Isumbras as a character. These violent things keep happening to him, only causing him to want to reach the Holy Land faster. He knows once he gets there he will once again live in comfort with his family, just as the bird, God’s messenger, tell him from the start of the narrative. Isumbras at times feels disheartened but never fully strays from the path God had set out for him. When his last child is taken from him, it is explained that Isumbras’ “mood had swung from acceptance to despair and back again many times but he had never felt quite so hopeless nor so desperate as now. He sat on a stone and said: 'Lord! I am so utterly miserable! I have lost my wife and all my children and now I am entirely alone” but he still continued on, despite every violent and awful thing that had happened to him, all in the name of God. Religion plays a large part in Isumbras’ story and is directly connected with the majority of the violent acts in the narrative. Whether it was the violence inflicted in the beginning causing Sir Isumbras to leave for the Holy Land or at the end with the war against the unholy Saracen army. Sir Isumbras is able to justify any acts of violence because he believes this is God’s plan. Isumbras says “We shall seek the place where God lived and died for us, shedding His blood for us on the cross. For Jesus Christ in His mercy will provide food for us if we beg while we travel along.” Isumbras is able to place all of his heart into God. The religious implications represent the presence of violence, because even though Isumbras is acting through God’s will, even He experienced violence in extreme ways. He was placed on the cross and “shed his blood” for the sins of his people. He died, quite violently. No narrative, even the most holy of narratives, is completely free from a trail of violence. In God’s name, Sir Isumbras even inflicts self-violence. He “cut the figure of Christ's cross into the flesh of his shoulder” to represent his desire to travel as a pilgrim. Even if you take out all of the violence that Sir Isumbras experiences, the self-induced violence, the kidnapping and the final war, and focus singularly on the physical story as a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, violence will still be present. It will be there with God’s own narrative, the reason travelers make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to begin with. Death and violence can never fully be eradicated, even with the purest of intentions. Throughout the narrative violence and religion intertwine in many interesting ways. They project not only the narrative but also the characters within the story. The violence Sir Isumbras encounters pushes him to his end goal. It motivates him to finish his own story and get back what he once lost. The purpose of his journey is to atone for his sins and make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but one could question whether his story would have ever been completed if it had not been for the violence he encountered. Each violent act, despite the occasional feeling of despair and hopelessness, acted as a stimulator for Sir Isumbras. If everything went his way, if he never encountered any violence and life was as easy as it had been, there would not even be a story. This narrative, and many before and since Sir Isumbras rely heavily on violence to not only create an interesting story but to project the narrative and the characters within it forward. Violence and religion are able to mesh together to create an entirely unique experience.
Believers of the Old and New Testaments claim that violence is a sin and can only lead to more brutality and death; poet Tony Barnstone firmly agrees. In his poem “Parable in Praise of Violence” Barnstone lambastes the American obsession with violence-- that it is often triggered by inevitable events which could be handled in different manners. The speaker in “Parable in Praise of Violence” reflects on all parts of his “sinful” culture and comes to the realization that people often use violence as a way to deal with emotions of grief and anger caused by events and concepts they cannot explain.
Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” does a marvelous job of highlighting the violent nature of mankind. The underlying cause of this violent nature can be analyzed from three perspectives, the first being where the occurrence of violence takes place, the second man’s need to be led and the way their leader leads them, and lastly whether violence is truly an innate and inherent characteristic in man.
Mariatu, at the age of eleven, was raped by a man she knew and feared. “Salieu lay down beside me. I didn’t believe he would do anything to me if I appeared to be sleeping, but he started touching me all over, fondling my breasts and my hair, making his way in between my legs,” (Kamara 69). The young girl was so innocent she had not even understood exactly what happened to her. Not only did she not understand what trauma she had been through, she was also unaware that pregnancy and a child could come from rape, which it did. At the same age, Mariatu was tortured by rebel boys her own age. They cut off both her hands gruesomely. “I had no energy left as a boy took my other arm and held it down on the boulder. It took three attempts to cut off my left hand. Even at that, some of the flesh remained and hung precariously loose,” (Kamara 41). Subjected to torture, she was a victim. One could argue Ishmael was no victim, in fact he was a perpetrator and a killer, however the underlying goodness of this young boy’s heart proves his true desires and regrets. He was brainwashed into killing and committing sins he could not bare. He lost his innocence, something he could not regain. However his morality and values never left his side. In Ishmael’s book he writes a story about a monkey. Summarized, this story states; “There was a hunter who went into the bush to kill a monkey. When he was close enough to the monkey, he raised his rifle and aimed. Just when he was about to pull the trigger, the monkey spoke: ‘if you shoot me your mother will die, and if you don’t, your father will die.’ So what would you choose?” (Beah 217). Beah never revealed his answer as a child, but he always knew he would choose to shoot the monkey, because although he loved his mother and did not wish for her demise, if he shot this monkey, no other hunter would
Critics have already begun a heated debate over the success of the book that has addressed both its strengths and weaknesses. The debate may rage for a few years but it will eventually fizzle out as the success of the novel sustains. The characters, plot, emotional appeal, and easily relatable situations are too strong for this book to crumble. The internal characteristics have provided a strong base to withstand the petty attacks on underdeveloped metaphors and transparent descriptions. The novel does not need confrontations with the Middle East to remain a staple in modern reading, it can hold its own based on its life lessons that anyone can use.
Through this story we can see how oppression in certain cultures changes individuals differently, creates tension between those who do not wish to be subjugated and those doing the subjugating, and we see the integral opposition between the path of Catholicism and that of curandism. WORKS CITED:. Contexts for the Criticism. Ed. Donald Keesey.
Most can agree that random evil and suffering, such as accidents, war, illness, crime, and many more, have the power to disrupt human happiness. Most would also agree that it is not the evil and suffering that affects one, as much as it is how one responds to the evil and suffering that occurs in one’s life. It is undeniable that suffering occurs to everyone in some shape or form, and while others may not believe that it is suffering, it all depends on one’s life. There are many examples a reader can draw from in recent and ancient literature that provides examples of other’s suffering and how they responded to those stimuli. This essay explores how the problem of evil is addressed by Greek tragedy and by Western monotheistic tradition.
...ffection for his lover, in the novel they kill or act irrationally, in a conventional sense, for love. In their minds every action is justified by the love that they feel, whether it is for power and wealth, closeness, or maintaining the race. Love is all around them and drives them to be the people that they are. In all cases, including biblical, they cling to the love that inspires even the most absurd of actions and live their lives to fulfill their needs.
Just like how mortals have their own goals, deities also have an agenda. God, in the Hebrew Bible, has only two goals: to have humans obey Him blindly and to punish them if they disobey Him. In order to execute both of His plans, God uses violence. In Exodus 32, the Israelites who escaped Egypt insulted God by "making themselves a molten calf and bowing low to it and sacrificing to it" (Exodus 32:8), as well as claiming the calf to be the one who brought them out of Egypt (Exodus 32:4). By worshipping the idol of the calf, the Israelites had turned away from God. Because the Israelites disobeyed God, He ended up pursuing his other goal, to punish the people who disobeyed Him. Because of the Israelites' foolish act, God chose to inflict pain on them: "then the Lord sent a plague upon the people, for what they did with the calf that Aaron made" (Exodus 32:35). Since God never once appeared in front of humans as a man, the only way for the Israelites to experience God's anger and disappointment, and ultimately the power he yields, is through His physical punishment: the plague. Also, vice versa, the plague was the physical representation God needed in orde...
At first glance, it seems that the abhorrent destiny of the main character is at the mercy of mischievous and cruel gods.
...ely with one another and lived in peace as partners, the ease of human transgression permits no romanticized view of this Agolden age.@ Finally B and this is a much more fragmentary conceptualization B the story refuses its hearers the luxury of demonizing, suppressing or repressing violence. Violence is not something that others do to us, but something we inflict upon others. The story consequently demands that we confront and internalize deeply the consequences of violence, and in this alone offers a profoundly important model of response.
In different circumstances using violence on behalf of religion has aided a reformation, or the spreading of the gospel. Other times, millions of people have died due to resistance. Some situations call for violence and others do not. However, there is a failsafe way of determining whether violence should be used on behalf of religion, or not.
Conflict is one of the main driving forces behind a story. Without conflict the characters in the story would have no reason to do anything. Because of this every story requires some type of conflict in order to progress. The types of conflict can range from a man enduring the elements, known as man against nature, or as one character against a larger group, man against society. In addition to the other styles of conflict, the most relatable and compelling is when one character is set against another, known as man against man. Kate Chopin’s story “The Storm” displays three examples of a man against man style conflict, Bobinot against his wife Calixtra, Alcee against Calixta, and Alcee against his wife Clarisse, these show how a nonviolent conflict can occur between characters.
This paper will present a rhetorical context for the use of violence in the short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” as she presented in her essay “The Element of Suspense.” The form of classical tragedy in this story will also be analyzed from the critical theories of Aristotle and Longinus. Tolstoy will be used to examine the use Christian symbolism. Nietzsche will provide a more well-rounded universal conclusion to the uses of tragedy and spiritual elements in this classic story.
Violence. Just mentioning the word conjures up many images of assault, abuse, and even murder. Violence is a broad subject with many categories. Some types of violence are terrorist violence and domestic violence. Violence can arise from many different sources; these sources whether biological, cultural, and social all can evoke violent behavior. All cultures experience some sort of violence, and this paper considers violence as a cultural phenomenon across a range of various settings. Violence plays a part in both Islamic and Indian cultures according to the articles “Understanding Islam” and “Rising Dowry Deaths” by Kenneth Jost and Amanda Hitchcock, respectively. From an anthropological perspective, violence emphasizes concerns of meaning, representation and symbolism.