| This thesis is an analysis of representations of religion, specifically monasticism, within specific literatures of Latin America and Russia. I examine the way monasticism functions as a nexus of power, specifically in the form of a literary trope. In this way, my thesis is situated both in the comparative study of literatures and the academic study of religion. The literary texts examined are The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevskii, and Of Love and Other Demons, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Both of these novels use the structure of a monastery as a locus for action and a center for the constitution and cultivation of belief. Therefore, monastic institutions in these examples of literature are representations of the cultural forms of Christianity found in these areas. My thesis examines the ways monasticism is represented and how these representations relate to both the ritualistic aspects of Christianity and the rhetoric some Christians use to construct, promote, and maintain monasticism. |
