Playing God: Self-Reflection, Religion, and Morality in Muriel Spark's Fiction

신을 연기하기: 뮤리엘 스파크 소설의 자아반영성, 종교, 윤리

Through the experimental narrative construction by authorial divinity, Muriel Spark's novels and films based on her fiction show the difficulty of living like a human being under various inhumane and manipulative circumstances of the modern capitalistic society. By adopting flash-forward, self-reflection, and deceptive omnipotent viewpoints, her work has surprisingly predicted the post-modern trend in which humans are increasingly attracted and interpellated to the digitalized media. Muriel Spark called the recent anesthetic situation by stimulation "a driver's seat" because it is a symbol of how humans should act to maintain the critical subject. Emphasizing the value of self-reflection, religion and morality in the mechanized society, Muriel Spark stressed literature should play the role of helmsman who sails safely in the rough sea. In Muriel Spark's works, God is often synonymous with writers. As a Jewish immigrant she experienced alienation in Scotland, marital violence, prejudices of the London-based publishing world, Nazism, and Watergate. For her, the harsh reality of the modern society needs to be guided and complemented by something beyond human control. But rather than relying entirely on traditional Catholic doctrines such as Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh, Muriel Spark has taken a personal, religious view of literature and insists that the genuine writer must play God's play. Seeking for the speculative vision for the future of human life in God's plan, she tries to understand the complex twisted motives of human beings which are often far from the ideal form. Simply put, her search of self-reflection, religion and ethics is modeled on the God's plan for the ideal human being who is supposed as the writer with the transfigurative imagination of the trinity.