In my project, I wanted to explore the notion of sacrifice in relation to Christianity, specifically looking at the idea of martyrdom. I wanted to contrast this with Bataille’s ideas on religious sacrifices and his notions of the sacred. My aim for my project was so that I could understand the reason as to why people are willing to sacrifice their lives for their beliefs. To understand martyrdom in Christianity, I decided to look at their beliefs and values that they uphold and teach. I then looked at the meaning of martyrdom, and how it has changed from meaning martus, ‘to witness’ to die for a purpose or a cause.
To illustrate this point, I looked at Simone Weil as an example. She starved herself to death as a protest to the treatment of French citizens under Nazi-Germany. I wanted to explore her biography and her philosophy so I could understand her values and her beliefs. I then wanted to contrast Christian thoughts, with Bataille. He argued that sacrifice is religion portraying the heterogeneous. It breaks the means-end lifestyle for those who witness it, however, for the person martyring their self, he argued that they want to do it to break away from ‘things’. After looking at Bataille, I wanted to finally look at Yukio Mishima. I wanted to see whether his death was for a greater ‘good’ or belief he supported, or whether it was an attraction to the heterogeneous.
Key Books for my Project
Christian Beliefs and Martyrdom— “Christian Beliefs and Modern Questions” by O.Quick-Chase and “Martyrdom—The Psychology, Theology, and Politics of Self-sacrifice” by R.M Fields.
Simone Weil—”Simone Weil” by S. Pétrement and “Gravity and Grace” by S. Weil
Bataille—”Theory of Religion” by G. Bataille and “After Bataille – Sacrifice, Exposure, Community” by P. Ffrench
Mishima— “Life and Death of Yukio Mishima” by H. ScottStokes and “The Sea of Fertility” by Y. Mishima