（英语语言文学专业论文）《兔子跑吧》的精神分析.pdf

iv 兔子，跑吧的精神分析 研究生：廖丽玲 年级：2 0 0 5 级 学 科 专 业 ： 英 语 语 言 文 学 指导老师：陆小虹、张叔宁 研究方向：英美文学 中 文 摘 要 约翰厄普代克是美国当代重要作家之一，他在漫长的创作生涯中成果丰硕，其代表作 “兔子四部曲”为他赢来了众多文学奖项，第一部的兔子，跑吧描写主人公不满生活现 状而离家出走的故事，反映了二战后一代青年人普遍存在的精神危机，主人公“兔子”由此 引来了美国和我国文学研究界的广泛高度重视。 本文用弗洛伊德精神分析方法考察兔子的心理的内部机制，探索了其人格结构与其行为 表现的关系，强调了个人的社会行为的心理动力。 文章分五个部分，第一章，引言：指出 从精神分析的人格结构论来看，兔子不合常理的行动是本我、自我和超我之间及其与外界之 间的相互撞击，其次，总结了前人研究本书的成果，并提出本文的观点。 第二章，弗洛伊德精神分析法与兔子，跑吧的关系。阐述了人格结构论，也就是本 文的理论基础，并指出用它来解剖兔子，跑吧的可行性。 第三章， 兔子的人格结构和防御机制。对兔子人格作精神剖析，通过其心灵轨迹的探 索，展示了兔子强烈又原始的本我及其形成的原因、疲弱的超我及其组成部分、以及主人公 的自我和自我采取的防御机制，即替代和否定。 第四章对本书中的象征作精神分析式研究，并把象征分为景、物和行动两个方面。 最 后一章本文做出结论：人格结构的三个层次是对抗又互相制约的，他们之间必须互相协调才 能让心理状态达到平衡，在这过程中，自我根据现实原则采取防御机制以免产生人格分裂。 由此，兔子只是对外在环境做出自然反应的普通人，无甚高尚或低劣。 关键词： 精神分析；人格结构；象征； 兔子，跑吧 v a freudian psychoanalytic interpretation of rabbit，run postgraduate: liao liling grade: 2005 supervisors: associate prof. lu xiaohong, prof. zhang shuning major field of study: english language personality structure; symbols; rabbit, run 论文独创性声明 本人郑重声明：所提交的学位论文是本人在导师的指导下进行的研究工作 及取得的成果。除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本论文不含其他个人或其他机 构已经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对本文的研究作出重要贡献的个人和集体， 均已在文中以明确方式标明。本人承担本声明的法律责任。 研究生签名： 日期： 论文使用授权声明 本人完全了解广西师范大学有关保留、使用学位论文的规定。广西师范大 学、中国科学技术信息研究所、清华大学论文合作部，有权保留本人所送交学 位论文的复印件和电子文档，可以采用影印、缩印或其他复制手段保存论文。 本人电子文档的内容和纸质论文的内容相一致。除在保密期内的保密论文外， 允许论文被查阅和借阅，可以公布（包括刊登）论文的全部或部分内容。论文 的公布（包括刊登）授权广西师范大学学位办办理。 研究生签名： 日期： 导 师签名： 日期： iii acknowledgements it is so hard a job to finish writing such a long final paper. but because of what i have learned from the teachers here and there, and my studies in my spare time in the past two years, and because of all indispensable aids and information from different angles, the completion of this final paper has become real, and it is time for me to enjoy its glory and express my thanks to people who have helped me. so first of all, i would like to express my gratitude to my tutors lu xiaohong and zhang shuning, for their patient teaching, invaluable advice and candid criticisms. they have taught me a unique way to appreciate the american literature, which has been of great value to the completion of my m.a. thesis. secondly, my thanks should be expressed to all the people who have helped and encouraged me, including my parents and my classmates. finally, i would like to express my great thanks to guangxi normal university, whose beauty makes my campus life more colorful, and whose library offers me a lot of useful materials for my study of the american literature, and for the writing of this thesis. 1 chapter 1 introduction 1.1 introduction to updike and the rabbit quartet belonging to the school of “ the new yorkers” with j. d. salinger and john cheever, john updike (1932- ), the famous contemporary american writer, has enjoyed broad fame since his first novel the poor house fair was published in 1959. prolific and versatile，the author has created twenty three novels, five books of verse, about twelve short story collections, four lengthy collections of prose- pieces, one play, four children s books, plus abundant uncollected reviews, and his productivity merited high praise. those “ big issues” that his contemporaries favor, such as the future, worldwide hunger, war and regional conflicts, have seldom received preferential treatment or abundant overt discussions in updike s books. he has chosen to give us insight into the modern world through little people living in middle towns or suburbs, and reveal us the drama of common man: man, woman, children, housework . all these mundane concerns always rest at the heart of his art. his books often center upon insolvable dilemmas, and the dialectical tension in his work is often the result of self- seeking and desperate fact of their condition they are enmeshed in. as a sensitive writer, updike engages in a struggle to penetrate into and impose meaning upon the flux of his experiences. the sequence of his novels represents a quest for the appropriate form in which he could best delineate his intensely subjective and impressionist material. in the artistic structures in fiction, he is an experimentalist. but his motifs have not substantially changed. instead, they are only modulated, varied in emphasis. incontrovertibly, john updike has been one of the most talented and eminent writers in his generation. his works match their consistently high quality, and have increasingly aroused the critics great interest. some critics claimed that “ john updike s more polished; more artistic; more professional epiphanies make perhaps the best stories of our time” (miller, 2001: 682). and some regarded him as “ the most talented writer of his age in america” (mizener, 1962: 20). of course, there are some critics who dislike his taste of customary subject matter. a typical and radical comment was made by norman podhoretz, who once said: “ to me he seems a writer who has very little to say and whose authentic emotional range is so narrow and thin that it may without too much exaggeration be characterized as limited to a rather timid nostalgia for the confusions of youth” (podhoretz, 1973: 343). despite the debate of the critical world, people cannot give blind eyes to his rabbit quartet entitled rabbit, run, rabbit redux, rabbit is rich, and rabbit at rest, ranging thirty years from the 1950s to the 1980s, which chronicle four decades of the american culture and the life through the eyes of an everyman protagonist - - - harry angstrom. 2 the social background of rabbit, run is some of the real events in the small town called brewer and the country from march to june 1959. the background of rabbit redux is some of the real events in real america from july 16th to october 31st in 1969, when the american spaceship landed the moon the first time in the human history. the social background of rabbit is rich is based on the reality from july in 1979 to january 1980. and the social background of rabbit at rest is based on the reality from christmas day in 1988 to october 1989. from the mixture of the fictional life and the real events, it is extremely interesting for readers to learn the growth and development of an everyman figure, and to learn the real america in thirty years. because of this typical and creative description, the author s depictions of everyday middle- class life and the stifling atmosphere of marriage have, in the minds of many readers, vividly captured the emptiness of middle- class america. so this quartet stands as his magnum opus with its characters, scenes and themes in consistency and unity, and exhibits an epical social picture of contemporary america and spiritual being of ordinary american middle class. rabbit is the pet name of harry angstrom, and is a supreme creation with the full human potentialities for good and evil, for success and failure, for love and lust, for life and death. generally speaking, the four books can be traced to the same origin, because they are in accordance with each other, and is an integral whole. but at first, when he finished writing rabbit, run, updike did not expect this to develop to be a quartet. and we know that each of the four describes different historical events and different kinds of life style in different decade. in rabbit, run, rabbit is twenty- six, father of a three- year- old son, a demonstrator of vacuum cleanser in a local store with dull spiritual world. in those years of limelight, a star basketball player like him has been a lost eden. what makes it worse is his wife, janice, who always falls into drunken situation, providing him with no warm and comfortable love nest but a dark and cold house. feeling that he is on a cliff and there is an abyss he will fall into, rabbit runs away and seeks to recapture the eden of yesterday, and yet each more discovers that it has gone sour. there are divergent views on the character analyses, and comments on rabbit s nature also covers a wide life circle: persistent self- seeker, pursuer of spiritual truth, updike s dreamer, an absurd saint, an anti- hero of motion, an everyman who is exiled and bound to return, a misogynist and so on. the quartet might be hailed as a major fictional achievement or dismissed as self- indulgence or a failure. but actually, what updike depicts is, neither hero nor villain, but an everyman who is trapped in the same social milieu as our modern people do. everyman s fate is defined by the complex interaction between the disordered environment and confused inner world. 3 1.2 a review of updike and rabbit, run in order to make clear what kind of person rabbit is, the writer of this paper firstly introduces the previous researches on updike s writing at home and abroad. the east and the west had been in the state of the “ cold war” since liberation, and the ideological parting of us- china resulted in obstructing of the cultural communication. when america is in political turbulence and economic decline in 1970s, china is in a brand new period of development after 1970s, and the ideological emancipation brings forth sino- american communication in the course of nature. meanwhile, john updike, an american promising writer began to win national academic celebrity in china. from the present material at home, the study on john updike in the mainland china began from late 1970s. up to now, there are more than 70 literary criticisms on updike s works, in which more than 30 essays are on his rabbit series. as a whole, the domestic research could be marked off into two stages: 1980s, and 1990s. in the first stage of 1980s, the research on updike showed itself in the following four characteristics. firstly, most of the critiques of rabbit novels focus on exploring the inherent reasons why rabbit is always tending to run, that is, the extreme dissatisfaction toward the reality, and quest for the ultimate meaning. secondly, the researchers make good use of class analysis as a method to show the overall of the classes in that period of time. thirdly, it is acknowledged that rabbit s vogue life could be recognized as the epitome of that corrupted society. fourthly, most critics consider updike as a realist writer by presenting his realistic expression. in the second stage of 1990s, the research on updike entered a new stage with profundity and wide scope. six characteristics of that period read as follows: firstly, the essays presented a panorama of american society in changing circumstances shown in the rabbit novels, and the focus of them lay in harry angstrom, the protagonist. thus updike is recognized as a representative writer who depicts the society and the conflicts between the personal will and the relentless reality by presenting the sad life of common people and the description of trivial matters. secondly, critics lay emphasis on the sexual descriptions in the novels. the views of them are rather controversial. one commentator said that “ sex in updike s works is even turned into a new religion ” (guo, 1992: 148- 149). thirdly, critics depicted the image of harry to analyze the reason of harry s unsteady character by portraying his character in the following three aspects: a. the conflicts between the past and the present; b. the dualism of his own self; c. the collision of the outer environment 4 with the inner desire. fourthly, researchers made comment on the image, that is “ the net” and “ the circle” in the novels. fifthly, some critics explained the philosophical and religious ideas in the novels. sixthly, some critics tried to shed light on the rabbit novels with the cultural perspective, and made a conclusion that the contradiction between the reality and the illusion rabbit faces was either a matter of morality or a cultural phenomena. however, analysis of the protagonist with freud s psychological theory was hardly found. as far as the research of this thesis goes, a few influential collections of criticism on updike s writing will be introduced as epitome to grasp the overall condition of updike s research abroad. in john updike and religion: the sense of the sacred and the motions of grace, an elegant collection of coordinated essays were edited effectively by james yorker, fifteen scholars of religious and literary critical studies have explored the ways in which updike portrays and probes the often religious dimensions of ordinary human s experience. consistently, the essays in this collection analyze how updike persistently examines the fusion and confusion of individuals desires or the spiritual satisfaction and the sensual gratification. within it, some persuasively argues that, for updike, god is not only in the natural world but also in human relationships (including sexual experiences), human artifacts (such as furniture design), and human activities (like the rituals and rules for games and sports); some examines the influence of updike s lutheran upbringing on his work; another article deals with the protestant tones associated with daily work as religious discipline; similarly, other three writers engagingly explore the multiple turns that updike makes to hawthorne s works, ranging from references in his essays, autobiographical reflections, and the angstrom novels; and some even provocatively penetrates into the paradoxical theology and the american culture in updike s fiction. nonetheless, this collection respects the theological inspiration and challenges of updike s work without trying to classify updike himself as a theologian. by taking seriously his logical concerns and religious sensibility, the essays make a considerable contribution to the scholarship in updike, who, in some extent, has become the spokesman for our collective private life. in a word, too many critics have held the viewpoint that rabbit quests for higher meaning, something that wants him to find it. his every action is an attempt to discover and apprehend that meaning. that inward significance demands the confirmation of a voice, which calls rabbit to make life meaningful. they believe that this voice is akin to the christian concept of grace, which appears on the first page in rabbit, run and says “ motion of graces, hardness of heart; external circumstance (from the ancient french thinker pascal 1623 - 1662)” . however, instead of viewing the figure from the broad insight, most of them usually focus 5 on the religious meaning of his running and escaping and pursuits, which hardly give a comprehensive analysis of him, a creature in nature. 1.3 the focus of this thesis with the rabbit series having been arousing wide concern in the critical world, the significance of rabbit, run also attracts my attention. during the further study of this novel, i have found that the character of the protagonist is rather complex. i wonder if i could apply sigmund freud s theory to this hero. therefore, drawing on some fruits of these updike critics, by using the traditional freudian criticism, i have analyzed this rabbit book with the purpose to give a more comprehensive reading of the mental changes of harry angstrom, to explore the dimension of his psychology that drives rabbit to behave, to observe how rabbit struggles among id, ego, and superego, and to explain what it actually is that influences and manipulates an individual s behavior and everyman s destiny. accordingly, the thesis falls into five chapters, including an introduction and a conclusion. the first chapter deals with the introduction to rabbit, run and the author, and overviews the previous analysis on the novel, and lastly expounds the differences between this thesis of mine and the formal ones. chapter two conveys the basic theory of freudian psychoanalysis that is relevant to this thesis: the theory of personality structure. the embodiment of this theory in the novel is briefly depicted in this part, giving a proposal of topic that the writer of this thesis to deal with - - - rabbit s shocking actions are the natural outcome of the crashes of id, ego and superego with the external environment. chapter three devotes to rabbit s powerful id, ineffective and disappearing superego and the defense mechanisms that ego adopts: the replacement and the denial. chapter four mainly devotes to the symbols in the novel from the perspective of freudian psychoanalytic literary criticism, which falls into two parts: the objects and the scenery, and the activities. the summary in the conclusion is that, while trying to keep a balanced personality, rabbit is actually an everyman reacting naturally to the external environment. the significance of this study is that it aims to arouse people s more interest in updike s novels, to enhance people s further understanding of rabbit, run, to encourage people to go deeper into the relationships between updike s work and freud s theory and, finally, to enlighten, if possible, common people s inner world. although this thesis intends to make a detailed analysis of updike s rabbit, run, it mainly concentrates narrowly on the hero without considering other characters very much. a lot of literary theories can be adopted to study this novel, however, my thesis is only restricted to sigmund freud s theory of the structures of the human mind. 6 thus, my investigation is undertaken from only one perspective. if time permitting, i will undertake a clearer and broader investigation of john updike, go deeper into the novel and make a more detailed study. in spite of these limitations, in the current study, i hope to open up a window for those who are concerned about updike and rabbit, run, and to stimul