The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Comparing the Christian “God of War” in Beowulf and Slaughterhouse Five

Characterizations of God and Christianity have changed over the years, yet the political, social, and economic processes impacting such depictions have not. Through the ages, historical contexts continue to shape an author’s perspective, thereby impacting portrayal of religious concepts. Because a writer’s consciousness is molded by the environment, renderings of a sacred deity come to reflect unique characteristics of the time in which they were written. To better examine how depictions of God reflect this interplay between author and contemporary contextual circumstances, two texts from radically different times of war, Beowulf and Slaughterhouse Five, were chosen for study. While the “God of War” in both novels includes pagan and Christian elements, the purpose for simultaneous coverage of these concepts differs. Whereas Beowulf justifies old pagan traditions, as well as the role of Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England, Slaughterhouse Five uses the God of War to exemplify a psychological struggle to comprehend the meaning of war, as well as its deadly aftermath.