Religious Persecution in Literature

Paper Summary:

In this paper the author analyzes, compares and contrasts the religious and cultural persecution of Christians seen in Endo Shusaku's "Silence" and Roland Joffe's "The Mission". The paper further explains that each story shows that both foreign trade and religious conversion were the primary goals of the different groups of Europeans who came into contact with the peoples of the Americas and Asia from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries.

From the Paper:

"Within The Mission, the Jesuits from Europe are ultimately defeated in their mission (the double meaning of the film's title is deliberate) to help the indigenous peoples, not by government, but rather, by competing European economic interests, particularly the economic interests of the Portugese. Moreover, because the priests within The Mission are Jesuits (historically and ideologically radicals within the Catholic church) the church does not in fact support their efforts to maintain and defend Mission San Carlos, which they have built, and where the Indians of rural Colombia now safely and happily live. In Silence, Endo Shusaku describes how, in the 17th century, Christianity was practiced only in secret by Japanese Christians, due to severe religious intolerance on the part of the government there."

More papers on Religious Persecution in Literature:

• Analytical Essay # 4407 : "Themes in Shusaku Endo's "Silence"
• Research Paper # 98007 : "Colonial America"
• Cause and Effect Essay # 3380 : "The Black Death"

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