Rebecca west why is self sacrifice a sin

During this time and after, West continued in her long literary career, publishing many articles, novels, and other works. She covered the post-war trial of William Joyce, the British fascist, and the trials of German war criminals in Nuremberg, with articles that later became books.

Time magazine ran a cover story on her in Black Lamb and Grey Falcon , however, was her most ambitious work, the fruit of three trips to Yugoslavia made between and The book defied genres, blazing a literary trail for others to follow. It blended copious historical research with personal anecdotes within a framework constructed from all three journeys.

Rather than being a mere travelogue, the book is an entire education. In Yugoslavia itself was invaded by the Germans and their allies. T he title Black Lamb and Grey Falcon referred to a scene in the book, where West witnessed the slaughter of a black lamb by peasants who believed that the blood of the lamb would ensure fertility.

West saw the doctrine of the atonement, and the formulations of Paul, Augustine, and Luther combined, as examples of this retrogressive and irrational belief.

She did, however, also acknowledge the virtues of all three as thinkers, even while contrasting their work against the insight of the Liturgy of St. If an earthly, then his soldiers should prepare for battle; but if a heavenly, then they should build a church, receive the Eucharist, and prepare to be destroyed.

The emperor chooses the heavenly kingdom. West sees the poem as expressive of the human death wish, a turning away from this world and rationality, similar to the sacrificial system of the black lamb. For West, there was line of connection between this desire for destruction and the appeasement policy pursued by the Western powers; between the forces in play at Kosovo and the destruction unleashed in When war came, she wrote, she felt she had been here before, had stood on the same field as Kosovo.

Britain and the other nations had lain down to have their throats cut, driven by the same death wish. Only at the end, when it was almost too late, had Britain come awake and realized what was happening. She saw in art a source of hope. Art takes the events of our lives and re-narrates them in a redemptive mode.

West saw an additional source of hope in the unpredictable nature of human life. West describes finding these mean conditions in her travels interspersed with remnants of the admirable peasant cultures of the Balkan peoples. Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF. Skip to main content. This service is more advanced with JavaScript available.

Advertisement Hide. Authors Authors and affiliations Loretta Stec. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves. This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access. Google Scholar. Antic, Milica G.

CrossRef Google Scholar. Burns, John F.