This analysis will focus on Lord Sexsmith, a character who struggles with his own belief. In order to understand this character and the various events that occur throughout this novel, support will be provided from various scriptures found in the bible, scholarly articles, and my own experience growing up in a religious family. The approach I am applying is reader response, which will help provide the readers with a detailed image of how this character can be analyzed through a biblical perspective. This essay aims to provide an in-depth analysis of Lord Sexsmith and to provide detailed explanations and several examples to support the struggles this character faces with his faith.
In IceFields, Lord Sexsmith seems to struggle with his faith which is not uncommon for religion as I have been taught throughout my life. In the different religious groups, such as Christian, Islam, and even Jehovah Witness, we refer to the Lord Jesus Christ by different names like Jehovah, Prince of Peace, Allah, Saviour. All these religious groups through their teachings refer to the same Hebrew bible. A question many face, such as myself, and knowing that the bible has been translated many times across many different languages, could some of the scriptures’ meanings change through translations? Lord Sexsmith is a character who struggles with accepting his own appearance. We see that his faith is put to the test, when he state his fear “of being a laughable person wearing the [buffalo cap and cloak]” (Wharton 24). As for myself growing up in a Christian household, I struggled with accepting I had ADHD and Depression, but throughout my life, my parents who encourage my siblings and I to do daily devotions and to read the bible; thr...
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O’Hagan, Howard. IceFields. Edmonton: NeWest Press, 1995. Print.
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The Bible, for many centuries, has impacted society, culture, and religion in innumerable ways. Included in the Bible’s impact, is fictional literature (Erickson, 2015). Biblical allusion, defined as an ancillary reference to Scripture ("Definition," 2015), can be a useful tool for fiction writers to draw the attention of the reader to certain biblical truths. Mixed in with the writer’s style and language, biblical allusion, assists in building plot lines, themes, and influence over the reader’s beliefs (Erickson, 2015). Nevertheless, the real magic of biblical allusion lies within the author’s creative genius and ability to infuse biblical themes, metaphors, images, and characters in with the story to allow the audience to reach certain
According to David M. Carr, the history of Scriptural interpretation indicates that religious texts are popular candidates for reinterpretation and, as such, are spaces wherein the personal identity of the reader frequently inscribes itself at length:
... reflects the original logos while also maintaining a separate identity, so too must faith be both reflective and inventive. It should strive toward perfection like Reverend Maclean devouring Norman?s papers with a red pen, with the intention of reflecting God?s already established likeness. Yet it must also be careful not to close off unexpected, new avenues, for as Paul demonstrates through his fishing, the most arbitrary human actions can accrue religious resonance. Essentially, human faith faces the ultimate balancing act: it must strive to understand and believe and love all of God and His creation, while at the same time realizing that such complete knowledge is impossible, and that humanity is called to ?love completely without complete understanding? (103).
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N.T Wright (2008) stated that “When we read the scriptures as Christians, we read it precisely as people of the new covenant and of the new creation” (p.281). In this statement, the author reveals a paradigm of scriptural interpretation that exists for him as a Christian, theologian, and profession and Bishop. When one surveys the entirety of modern Christendom, one finds a variety of methods and perspectives on biblical interpretation, and indeed on the how one defines the meaning in the parables of Jesus. Capon (2002) and Snodgrass (2008) offer differing perspectives on how one should approach the scriptures and how the true sense of meaning should be extracted. This paper will serve as a brief examination of the methodologies presented by these two authors. Let us begin, with an
the power of faith are developed and can be used to show the problems in today’s culture.
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