Fear and Trembling Literary Elements

Religious/Philosophical Treatise

19th century Denmark

Kierkegaard published this under a pseudonym, "Johannes de Silentio," and writes from first-person point of view in lengthy essay.

Revelatory and ominous. The treatise discusses a fairly concerning, morally complicated story from ancient Judaism.

Abraham is the protagonist, and human nature is the antagonist

The conflict is described as Abraham's internal warfare. On one hand, he has been promised by God that through his son he would "become a great nation," but that cannot happen if his son dies. That's why it is so concerning when God tells him specifically to kill his son.

This is literally "deus ex machina," because right at the moment when Abraham raises his dagger to plunge it into his son, an angel stops him and offers him a scapegoat instead. Abraham and his lineage are spared by divine intervention.

Kierkegaard remembers the story as a foreshadowing of the gospel narrative, in which another "scapegoat" is interposed by divine intervention so that "Abraham's lineage" is spared from eternal death. Kierkegaard remembers Abraham's story through the lens of Hebrews 11 which names him "The Father of Faith."

A classic understatement occurs when Abraham's son interrupts the silence to ask, "Father, where is the sacrificial animal?" Abraham responds, "God will give one to us."

The whole treatise is built on an allusion to a famous Bible story, but then Kierkegaard contrasts his observations with Kant's writings about fate and human reality.

The spiritual imagery shown through ritual animal sacrifice and (potentially) through human sacrifice is fairly potent. Also, the religious idea of following fate constitutes much of the abstract imagery of these essays. The idea of "doing one's duty," even if it means "killing one's own family," is also the imagery of another scripture, the Hindu "Bhagavad Gita."

Paradoxically, the kind of obedience that Abraham demonstrates is not the loud, proud passion of religious zealots. In fact, one might argue that Abraham isn't even "doing something morally acceptable." Kierkegaard comments on this paradox, saying that Abraham is demonstrating a higher ethic by ignoring his own instincts and the concerns of his community.

The parallelism between the Abraham child-sacrifice story and the gospel are famous. For instance, he climbs a mountain to sacrifice his son, just like Jesus ascending to Jerusalem in the passion sequence. Jesus is called the scapegoat and the "lamb of God," and goes silently to his slaughter. Abraham moves silently uphill to offer his son, but is saved from that fate by a scapegoat with his "horns in a thicket," a parallel to Jesus's crown of thorns.

Abraham is offered as a pillar of faith, called the "Father of Faith" in Hebrews, which shows him as a model for Christian faith. Abraham is a stand-in for the people of God in that essay, and in this story, Kierkegaard sees a synecdochic representation of the religious life and the fulfillment of one's fate or duty.

The author works to re-personify the subject of these essays. In the section called "Exordium," Kierkegaard reminds the reader of all the typical human responses to such a situation as this, showing that Abraham is working against his human nature.