Ritual unbound
Subtitle: reading sacrifice in modernist fiction
By: Thomas J. Cousineau.
Publisher: University of Delaware Press; Associated University Presses
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Newark; Cranbury, NJ
Language: eng
Number of pages: 187
Subjects: Fitzgerald, F. Scott 1896-1940.; Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941.; Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924.; James, Henry, 1843-1916.; Ford, Ford Madox, 1873-1939.; English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; Scapegoat in literature.; Modernism (Literature) -- Great Britain.; Modernism (Literature) -- United States.; Rites and ceremonies in literature.; Sacrifice in literature.
Description: "This study explores the vestiges of primitive sacrificial rituals that emerge in a group of canonical modernist novels. It argues that these novels reenact a process that achieved its seminal expression in the Genesis story of "The Binding of Isaac," in which Abraham, prevented from sacrificing Isaac, offers up a ram in his place. Abraham's gesture breaks with the archaic practice of human sacrifice but implies the necessity of finding a substitute victim."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 173-183) and index.