The Abandonment of Christ: Christian Symbolism in Modernist Literature

“He is my cross and he will be my salvation” (Faulkner, 1755), these are the words spoken by the dying Addie to the young and religiously zealous Cora. These words are, of course, a reference to the cross of Christ, and to the salvation that He won for those who repent of sin and believe upon His substitutionary work. While the words are most definitely a reference to that Christian theology they are not the immediate reference in this context. Modernist literature, such as William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, uses a great deal of this Christian symbolism, but in a much less than orthodox manner. In their literature modernists have abandoned Christ in order to make a clear statement about the Christian religious system. Two works in particular that use this Christian imagery heavily to send an anti-Christian message are Faulkner’s work (mentioned above) and Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman. An analysis of their selected imagery compared with Biblical understandings of the Christ show that modernist literature aimed to do away with the notion of any divine, eternal salvation.

In Faulkner the message is abundantly clear. As Cora recounts the conversation she has had with Addie it become apparent that the older woman see no need for salvation. Cora begins by explaining that Addie had “never been pure religious, not even after that summer at the camp meeting when Brother Whitefield wrestled with her spirit, singled her out and strove with vanity in her mortal heart” (1754). This lack of pure religion in Addie gives rise to a misunderstanding of Christian theology on the subject of sin. Cora relates their conversation:
I said that because she took God’s love and her duty to Him too much as a matter of course, and such conduct is not pleasing to Him. I said, “He gave us the gift to raise our voices in His undying praise” because I said there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner than over a hundred that never sinned. And she said “My daily life is an acknowledgement and expiation of my sin” and I said “Who are you, to say, what is sin and what is not sin? It is the Lord’s part to judge; ours to praise His mercy and His holy name in hearing of our fellow mortals” because He alone can see into the heart, and just because a woman’s life is right in the sight of man, she can’t know if there is no sin in her heart without she opens her heart to the Lord and receives His grace. (1754)

In Orthodox Christianity, man’s sin problem can only be rectified by a righteous sacrifice that fully satisfies the justice of a holy God. This is why Christians teach that Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, came to earth and died on a cross. His death bore the punishment that was meant for human kind. God in His justice must punish sin and Christians teach that He either punished a person’s individual sins when He poured out His wrath on Jesus or He will pour it out on those who have not repented and put their faith in Jesus Christ as savior. This, however, is not the theology of Addie.
Addie states that her life, not Jesus’ death, is the means of expiation for her sins. She has done away with the need for a savior, for an external righteousness, for a perfect sacrifice that meets God’s standards. Rather it is the burden of living the hard life that she has endured that makes her acceptable to God. Addie uses the word “expiation” which is a synonym for “penance” or “compensation”. She sees no need for a savior because she has lived a hard enough life, made an “atonement” (in a sense) through bearing this burden and is therefore no longer in debt to God. “Salvation” comes merely through enduring the “hard-life”. Christ has been abandoned.

Cora smugly states, “She has had a hard life, but so does every woman. But you’d think from the way she talked that she knew more about sin and salvation than the Lord God Himself, than them who have strove and labored with the sin in this human world” (1755). Perhaps this was exactly how Addie felt about it. Her theology certainly does not match up with the Biblical message. The full picture of Addie’s soteriology comes forth in her final words to Cora. “He is my cross and he will be my salvation. He will save me from the water and from the fire. Even though I have laid down my life, he will save me” (1755). This sounds like an Orthodox statement. To anyone listening to Addie it might sound like “sound biblical theology.” Cora, however, sees through the veneer of proper language to the message behind it. She soon realizes Addie “did not mean God. I realized that out of the vanity of her heart she had spoken sacrilege” (1755). Whom did Addie mean if not God? She had abandoned the Christ for another savior. While her hard life may have been an expiation from her sins she her speaks of Jewel as her identifiable savior.

That Jewel is here the savior of Addie can be clearly seen in two accounts within the text itself that fulfill the prophecy Addie here speaks of. (1) It is Jewel who saves Addie from the flood; he is the only one to remain on the wagon and driving the horse to shore (1749). (2) When the barn goes up in flames it is Jewel, again, who saves the coffin containing his dear mother (1775). Both of these instances reveal Jewel as the savior to which Addie refers. Again Christ is abandoned for a salvation from a child. Addie’s child is her source of salvation, and this salvation is, of course, altogether different than the salvation that Jesus Christ gives.
There is no heaven in this account, no eternal life. Faulkner’s tale reveals no need for a divine savior because there is no eternal salvation. Christ has been abandoned because, according to the modernist author, there is no need for Him. Nanci Kincaid, in her article As Me and Addie Lay Dying, has recognized many Christian references and the overall tone of mockery that Faulkner gives to the work concerning religion. She has, however, completely missed this one crucial scene of the Messiah Jewel, and in so doing left out an enormous argument for Faulkner’s criticizing Christianity.

Amiri Baraka approaches the subject of Christian theology from a different angle, one much darker. Nita Kumar writes, “To Clay Lula is a white bohemian; to Lula, Clay is a typical middleclass young black, eager to achieve success on the terms laid down by white America” (African American Review, 275). One feature of this work is its use of binary opposition. Kumar lists several of these opposites: “aesthetic/politics, black/white, individual/community, mask/face, and Europe/Africa” (273). The opposition between black and white is crucial, for Baraka will condemn Clay for his assimilation with white culture.
Despite what Kumar has tried to defend in her article The Logic of Retribution: Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman this is a work about a distinctive black identity. He is quite opposed to the notion of compromise, or, as Kumar puts it, “complex negotiations” (271) between black identity and white identity. The element of Christian theology comes into play in the particular role that Lula plays in this work. From the very earliest encounter readers have with this character she is representative of the Christian personage of Eve. Baraka sets the scene up for his readers with the following introduction to Lula:

Lula enters from the rear of the car in bright, skimpy summer clothes and sandals. She carries a net bag full of paper books, fruit, and other anonymous articles. She is wearing sunglasses, which she pushes up on her forehead from time to time. Lula is a tall, slender, beautiful woman with long red hair hanging straight down her back, wearing only loud lipstick in somebody’s good taste. She is eating an apple, very daintily. Coming down the car toward Clay. (Baraka, 5)

Within moments of their dialogue Lula is already tempting the innocent young lad with sexual fantasies. She states one peculiar thing that is relevant to this discussion, however. After touching Clay’s leg and trying to “excite” him she “she plunges [her hand]…in her bag to draw out an apple” and temptingly says to the boy, “Eating apples together is always the first step. Or walking up uninhabited Seventh Avenue in the twenties on weekends. Can get you involved…boy! Get us involved. Um-huh. Would you like to get involved with me, Mister Man” (11)? Women offering apples to men is, of course, most frequently associated with the Biblical character of Eve, who tempted her husband Adam with some fruit, which having been eaten brought about a transgression against a holy God. The two were banished from the Garden of Eden and, according to Christian theology, brought sin and death into the world. “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).

In considering how Baraka, like Faulkner, abandons the Christ as savior we must focus on the role that his “Eve” plays in the drama and how the Bible relates the real Eve’s sin with Jesus’ salvation. While the Christian New Testament concedes that it was Eve who first ate of the apple and led Adam to follow it places the brunt of the blame on Adam, not his wife. Original Sin, the contamination of all of humanity with a sin nature, is the result of “one man’s disobedience” (Romans 5:19). This is significant because a second Adam, Jesus Christ, rectifies the first Adam’s failure. “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many are made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). Baraka’s “Eve,” however, allows no room for the blame to be placed on her “Adam”. Clay is not simply tempted to transgress by Lula, he is violently murdered by her. It is a message of hopelessness.

After having stabbed Clay, Lula orders his dead body to be thrown out of the subway car and readers are left with a bleak feeling. The “Adam” figure in the work is dead, he has been killed by Eve and any hope of a second Adam to rectify the world is lost. In Dutchman it is clearly obvious that Lula is the one to bear all the blame. The work has no concern for Clay’s “sin,” whatever that might have been. He is of no consequence and therefore the entire Christian theme of the second Adam coming into the world to correct the mistakes of the first Adam is lost. Again readers see evidence for an abandoned Christ, an abandoned salvation. The despair of the play, the blackness, the void, the emptiness of the conclusion (leaving readers without any gratification or hope) point to a confession of its author. Speaking about the concept of the “black identity” Baraka said, “It was our intention to be hard and unyielding in our hatred because we felt that’s what we needed, to hate these devils with all our hearts, that would help in their defeat and our own liberation” (Kumar, 272). Kumar comments on this Black Nationalism that was driving Baraka with a keen observation that speaks to the focus of this paper.

These rejections of the white world, however, cannot simply be understood as realistic and attainable goals. In some cases they were inspired by the various struggles of independence being waged across Africa and Asia. There is, however, a crucial difference, since the African American could aspire to nationhood only in spirit, not material control of land. Therefore these gestures of rejection have to be seen primarily as ideological and rhetorical strategies for the empowerment of the community” (272).

One way to reject the white culture ideologically was to reject the predominate white culture, especially Southern, religion: Christianity, and in order to do just that Baraka knew where to start. Strike at the foundation of the whole system: abandon Christ.
While Faulkner and Baraka came from different worlds, different times, and struggled with completely differing issues they had this common feature: both were modernist writers who, like many of their contemporaries, saw no need for a savior Jesus Christ and therefore no need of the Christian impositions. Thus they aimed at displaying an abandonment of Christ in these two literary works.