Listening to the thesis presentations last night really started drawing lines and connecting some of the stuff we’ve read this semester. One thing that really stood out to me was something Kala said about one of the characters in… Decent Into Hell, I believe it was, who withdraws from everyone. The further he withdraws, the deeper he goes into hell. That hit me like, “Whoa! So hell is NOT other people??” And then I thought about Hulga (ugh! That name!) from O’Connor’s Good Country People. She basically withdrew from the world to live out the remainder of her life in her mother’s house: caring for nothing, believing in nothing, and being quite nasty to those around her. She seems to be in a self induced hell. She says she wants to be out at a university discussing the things she knows with people who care and know what she‘s talking about, yet she removes herself from the possibility of that situation by isolating herself at her mother’s house, then shunning her mother as well. She is left utterly alone in the world. I think Sartre had it wrong-- well not wrong, but maybe there’s more to it. This is going to sound a little weird, but is it possible for hell to be both other people and no people? Perhaps it’s hell only when the other person proves to be our doppelganger, but otherwise it’s hell without other people. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just talking in trapezoids. Blah…
P.S. I commented on "Invisible Grace" by His Beloved
Perhaps Hell is different for every person. Like, for some, hell could be other people to torment some, but for others, it could be utter solitude. Or maybe it is being faced with our doppelgänger. Or realizing that our lives may be meaningless.
ReplyDeleteOr, you know... Maybe it's a tormenting lake of fire...
I totally understand where you are coming from. It does seam, when you compare these works to Sartre, that maybe the later had it wrong. However, I also agree with Jamie. I think that hell can be different for everyone. I don't think that anyone can be truly happy on Earth, whether surrounded by people or not, because this is not our home. We as Christians know that we are not meant to stay in this World forever. So maybe there are multiple ways that every person can be tortured! Or like Jamie said again, we could just read the Bible and see what that says about what hell would be like.
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