Date of Award
Summer 8-12-2014
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
First Advisor
Paul Schmidt
Second Advisor
Murray Brown
Third Advisor
Melissa McLeod
Abstract
In The Way of All Flesh, published posthumously in 1903 but written during the years 1873-1884, Samuel Butler presents his Victorian world as one in crisis, unhinged by recent scientific developments. Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859 and effectively undercut most religious and theological belief structures with his argument that all species evolved gradually over time from a common ancestor. If this is so, how could the Bible's story of creation be true? Samuel Butler incorporates terminology of evolution and develops his own evolutionary views in response to Charles Darwin's throughout the novel. Butler's protagonist, Ernest Pontifex, exemplifies the evolutionary process in a bildungsroman-style text to implicitly suggest Butler's belief that man cannot successfully adapt to his environment without wealth. Indeed, wealth can be seen as a sort of religion for Butler's protagonist, replacing the position God formerly held as that which was to be worshipped.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/5817856
Recommended Citation
Mills, Carla, "Samuel Butler's Ernest Pontifex, or The Way of All Flesh: Evolution, Religion, and Wealth." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2014.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/5817856