Kierkegaard's The Cruelty Of Sacrifice
Abraham too was called on to make a sacrifice, but the familiarity of his story too often diminishes its mystery. God commands Abraham to take Isaac, his only-begotten son through whom Abraham is to be made a “father of nations,” to the top of Mt. Moriah and offer him as a burnt sacrifice. Abraham obeys and at the last moment an angel is sent to interrupt the ceremony and proclaim that Abraham has passed God’s test. But why should God have asked such a thing of Abraham in the first place? Is such cruel experimentation not just as revolting as Walter’s “marveillous desir his wyf t’assaye” (ClT 454)? According to Kierkegaard’s well-known interpretation of the Abraham story, the shock of God’s cruelty must be sustained, “in order to see what a tremendous paradox faith is, a paradox which is capable of transforming a murder into a holy act well-pleasing to God, a paradox which gives Isaac back to Abraham, which no thought can master, because faith begins precisely where thinking leaves off” (64). Similarly in the case of Walter’s treatment of Griselda, what strikes us as a needless and fickle-minded torment
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Walter himself at last defends his actions from the charge of pointless cruelty claiming that all was done “for no malice, ne for no crueltee, / But for t’assaye in thee thy wommanheede” (1074-5). But what is this womanhood that needs testing? If it is merely a capacity for suffering, then Walter’s apology is nonsense and the story must be anti-climactic: What else is cruelty, after all, than the testing of a creature’s capacity to suffer? There must rather be some positive virtue that is being brought to the fore in these ordeals. What motivates Griselda to endure them so
Walter himself at last defends his actions from the charge of pointless cruelty claiming that all was done “for no malice, ne for no crueltee, / But for t’assaye in thee thy wommanheede” (1074-5). But what is this womanhood that needs testing? If it is merely a capacity for suffering, then Walter’s apology is nonsense and the story must be anti-climactic: What else is cruelty, after all, than the testing of a creature’s capacity to suffer? There must rather be some positive virtue that is being brought to the fore in these ordeals. What motivates Griselda to endure them so