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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE
A. Review of Related Studies
Since The Shack is published and has been coming to public, there are a lot of comments about it. Most of the related studies are concerned with
the theological aspect. The major controversy of this novel is in the building of characters of Trinity, where many theologians and lay people focus on the
theological substance. A study of Patrick Zukeran in his critique highlights that the depiction of the Papa and Sarayu in the novel is confusing:
Young presents incorrect and confusing teachings regarding the nature of God and salvation. In this story, God the Father appears
as a large African-American woman. In contrast, the Bible teaches that the Father never takes on physical form. John 4:24 teaches that
God is spirit. 1 Timothy 4:16 states, God, the blessed and only ruler, the King of kings and Lord or lords, who alone is immortal
and who lives in unapproachable light whom no one has seen or can see. To add to this, God appears as a woman named Papa. It
is true that God is neither male nor female as humans are, and both feminine and masculine attributes are found in God. However, in
the Bible God has chosen to reveal Himself as Father and never in the feminine gender. This gender distortion confuses the nature of
God. Then In this story, the Holy Spirit appears as an Asian woman named Sarayu. In contrast, the Holy Spirit never appears as
a person in the Bible. There is one time when the Holy Spirit appears in physical form as a dove at the baptism of Jesus.
Moreover, the Spirit is never addressed in the feminine but is always addressed with the masculine pronounZukeran: 2008.
Zukeran compares the depiction of Trinity in The Shack with what is written in the Bible. In Zukeran’s critique he then concludes that The Shack is a kind
of heresy. Another study of Elizabet Lemons from Ohio University through
her Journal of Research on Women and Gender says that
Mack‘s concept
of hyper-rational
faith aligns
with Enlightenment discourse around Christianity as the rational
religion. Furthermore, Mack does not depart from gender norms; he stays rational, thereby remaining a reliable character
for reader identification. The Enlightenment’s epistemological shift from God to Man caused Christianity to relocate the
presence of the divine within white men Lemons : 2008.
Lemons in her critique focuses on the issue of gender which is revealed in The Shack. The spirit of enlightenment is the issue in the novel especially the male
domination or patriarchy system in the institution as Roman catholic church. Besides these two comments, there are also some opinions where the use of
metaphor and symbol are discussed as Chung Sunny argues in his opinion on http:www.modernreformation.org that:
The shack is William Paul Youngs metaphor for the heart housed by hurts, lies, and secrets. His aim in the story is to offer an
approachable God of relationality and love through whom his protagonist can make sense of tragedies, failures, and
disappointments.
These three related studies above analyze different topics from the writer’s stray, but they are also significant to develop the writer’s research.
Because they do not answer the writer’s research question, the writer decides to use psychoanalytic study to enrich the analysis of The Shack.
B. Review of Related Theories 1. Theory on charaterization
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