（英语语言文学专业论文）《奇境》中的困境：主题辨析.pdf

iii 奇境中的困境奇境中的困境: 主题辨析主题辨析 研究生：梁玉莹 年级：2005 级 学科专业：英语语言文学 指导老师：刘玉红 教授 研究方向：英美文学 中文摘要中文摘要 乔伊斯卡洛尔欧茨 （joyce carol oates 1938- ）是当今美国文坛上一位多产且多 才多艺的作家。在她的作品中，欧茨始终关注个人生存与社会环境的冲突。她热衷于刻画 当代美国社会一些不良现象给人类生存造成的混乱局面和心理问题。欧茨的特殊才能体现 在她能够以细腻的笔法逼真地刻画人物的内心世界，将他们的个人经历与社会现实结合起 来，揭示社会和经济压力造成的人类生存困境。 欧茨在奇境中关注现代人所面临的一些社会发展带来的主要问题。在这部小说中， 欧茨运用现实主义的笔法，生动形象地再现了美国三十年代到七十年代的历史变迁，以及 主人公杰西在这变化无常的美国社会里为了寻求自我、实现自我所做的种种努力和尝试。 为了生存，他只能不断地从精神上、智力上和心理上去改变自己，用改变自我、回避自我、 控制自我和扩张自我等方法来协调个人与社会环境之间的关系。在寻求自我的过程中，杰 西遇到了信奉唯我论的外祖父，狂妄自大者彼得森医生，人体机械论者卡迪博士以及行为 主义者珀劳特医生。这些充当着父亲角色的人的人生哲学都代表了片面的自我观。这些片 面的自我观影响了杰西，他因此没能走向实现自我的人生目标，反而走向更加孤独隔绝的 困境。 除了描写杰西的困境之外，欧茨还关注女性人物的生存境况。通过描写与杰西有密切 关系的三位女性的生存困境，欧茨控诉了男权社会对女性的歧视和贬低，对她们个性的压 制和人性的摧残。这体现了欧茨作为严肃作家的鲜明社会道德观。 在奇境中，欧茨不仅描写了男性和女性的困境，而且含蓄地表达了自己作为一名 作家的困境。 奇境作为欧茨过渡期的代表作，标志着作家创作艺术观和社会观的转变。 欧茨在其早期的作品中只是单纯地戏剧性地描述一些噩梦般的社会现象，往往用暴力来解 决个人与社会之间的矛盾。随着奇境的问世，欧茨希望能超越以往的文学模式，达到 一个更富表现力的道德境界。但她意识到了其中的道德失败，并为此深感不安。 关键词：关键词：欧茨；奇境；自我；生存；困境 iv an analysis of the theme related to predicament in wonderland postgraduate: liang yuying grade:2005 orientation: english and american literature supervisor: professor liu yuhong major field of study: english language and literature abstract in english joyce carol oates (1938- ) is a productive and versatile writer in contemporary american literature. oatess major fictional concern is on the conflict between the individual and his social environment. she shows her overwhelming fascination with the phenomenon of contemporary america: its colliding social and economic forces, its philosophical contradiction, in which individuals are often subjected to the dislocation and suffer extreme psychological turmoil. oatess particular genius consists in her ability to convey the psychological states with real fidelity, and to relate the intense private experiences of her characters to the larger realities of american life, so as to present the living predicament of the individual as results of the social and economic pressures. in wonderland, oates focuses on some essential problems that modern people would face during the social development. employing the realistic techniques, she vividly portrays american historical vicissitude from the great depression to the 1970s. a victim of the social milieu, jesse suffers self-loss during the depression. in order to regain his selfhood and attempt to search for the self-actualization, he strives to find connection with the world in the seething, vibrate “wonderland”. to survive, he has to constantly transform himself spiritually, psychologically and intellectually. he adopts the strategies of self-change, self-negation, self-control, and self-aggrandizement for the sake of adapting himself to the new conditions. in his self-actualizing journey, he encounters many fatherly figures-grandfather vogel, dr. pedersen, dr. cady and dr. perrault-who offer respectively solipsism, megalomania, empiricism, behaviorism as solutions to the problems of existence. these ideas represent the distorted sense of self. under these influences, jesses self-fulfillment becomes impossible. contrarily, that would lead him into a more embarrassed and solitude situation. besides unfolding jesses predicament, oates also concerns existence situation of her female characters. through presenting their existence predicament, oates aims at criticizing the patriarchal societys discrimination against and depreciation of women, suppression of the development of their personality as well as distortion of their humanity. this concern reflects v oatess distinctive social moral value as a serious writer. in wonderland, oates not only voices her characters predicament, but implicitly conveys her own predicament as a writer. as the “intermediary chapter”, wonderland signifies an artistic and psychological turning point in oatess fictional canon. in her early works, oates just purely dramatizes nightmarish social phenomena, stresses the function of violence on settling the contradiction between individual and society. with the completion of wonderland, oates attempts to transcend her previous literary pattern and move toward a more articulate moral position. after the completion of wonderland, oates realizes that she couldnt resolve the moral questions it raises and that failure distresses her. key words: oates; wonderland; self; existence; predicament 论文独创性声明论文独创性声明 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： ii acknowledgements my deepest gratitude goes to professor liu yuhong for the painstaking and insightful criticisms she made of the thesis both in draft and final form. without her encouragement and guidance, my thesis would not have taken the present form. her patience, her wisdom and her serious attitude towards academic study deeply impress me. my thanks secondly go to professor zhang shuning, professor lu xiaohong, professor bai jingze, professor zhang xianglin, professor he ruirong, professor xu jiwang and professor chen jitang for their precious guidance in my literary study for the past three years, whose illuminative lectures on literary studies, theories and measures of criticism greatly inspire me. thirdly, i am also indebted to all the teachers and administrative staff in guangxi normal university, whose help, either academic or otherwise, has made my three years study one of the most unforgettable and precious parts of my life. in addition, i extend my sincere appreciation to my classmates huang jianmiao and zheng ronghua, to my friends zeng wei, wei rongmei, liu changliang, yang fan and xiao lingyi, who have either encouraged me or supported me during my three-year study. thanks should also be given to many friends in the field whose names do not appear here, but who will recognize the influence of their contributions in the pages of this paper. last of all, i would like to express my appreciation to my mother and my younger brothers, for their understanding, consideration and support, without which, the present thesis would not have been possible. 1 chapter 1 introduction joyce carol oates（1938- ）is a prolific and versatile writer in contemporary american literature. she is widely known as a distinguished novelist, short story writer, poet, dramatist, essayist, critic and editor. besides, oates has been teaching as a full-time professor in various universities. since her first story collection by the north gate was published in 1963, oates has so far published fifty-four novels and novellas, thirty-one short story collections, eight poetry collections, eight drama collections, twelve essays and nonfictions, seventeen anthologies, and eight books for teenagers. thats to say, oates has been keeping on producing books at the rate of about two per year. the sheer quantity of her works has made her a cultural phenomenon. due to her unique talent and great dedication to the field of american literature, oates has received numerous awards and prizes, such as national book award for fiction in 1970, the o. henry awards and the best american short stories, etc. moreover, she has been nominated a candidate for the nobel prize for several times and praised as “the finest american novelist, man or woman since faulkner” (johnson, 1998: xvii). oatess literary career can be divided into four stages. oates initiated her literary career in the 1960s. oates follows the male-dominant tradition in this stage, so most of her works in this period borrow the style of the traditional realistic and naturalistic literature. her first novel, with shuddering fall (1964), shows her interest in evil and violence in a romance between a teenage girl and a thirty-year-old man. oatess best-known early novels form a trilogy a garden of earthly delights (1967), expensive people (1968), them (1969), examining representative facets of american life: the rural, the suburban, and the inner-city environment. a garden of earthly delights, tells the story of a daughter of a migrant worker who marries a wealthy farmer in order to provide for her illegitimate son. in expensive people, oates exposes the world of people in the suburbs whose focus on material comforts reveals the emptiness of their lives. the winner of the national book award for fiction, them, describes violence and suffering endured by three generations of an urban family in detroit. the three collections of short stories, by the north gate (1963), upon the sweeping flood (1966), the wheel of love (1970) receive more acclaims than her long fictions. closely related with the traditional style of realism and naturalism, her 2 works of this phase present a panoramic view of the society, exposing the material depravity and spiritual barrenness resulting from poverty and social vices such as violence and racial discrimination. oatess novels of the 1970s reflect her more matured artistic outlook. she tries to challenge some restrictions of literary tradition. a marked change lies in the shifting of her concern. instead of the pure description of the objective reality, oates presents more detailed account of the inner world of her characters. the tone of her writing tends to be optimistic rather than pessimistic as her early works retain. devices such as parody and revision on male literary giants works and literary genres are practiced. novels in this period explore characters involved with various american professionals and cultural institutions while adding tragic elements. the representative works are wonderland (1971), do with me what you will (1973), the assassins: a book of hours (1975), son of the morning (1978) and the collection of short stories marriage and infidelities (1972). the 1980s witnesses a fairly matured and self-consciously innovative oates. oates broadens her scopes to produce such explicitly feminist novels as marya: a life (1986), bellefleur (1980), solstice (1985). in this period, oates depicts “america as viewed through the prismatic lens of its most popular genre” (oates, 1985: 515), which refers to the gothic romance, the detective-mystery novel and the horror novel. these unrealistic novels represent a departure from her usual mode of psychological realism. these novels also serve as an ironic, postmodernist commentary on contemporary american culture. oates says “each novel tells an independent story i consider uniquely american and of our time, the characters of the stories are both our ancestors and ourselves” (johnson, 1987: 6). oatess writing in the 1990s traces back to that of the 1960s, a return in terms of style characterized by objective and broader range and obvious social interest. in because it is bitter, and because it is my heart (1990), oates returns to the familiar themes of race and violence. other works from this time include black water (1992), an account of a tragic encounter between a powerful u.s. senator and a young woman he meets at a party, and foxfire: confessions of a girl gang (1993), which describes the destructive activities of a group of teenage girls in the 1950s. oates is extremely sensitive to people and things around her and good at dramatizing them. she has transformed into fiction many of the people she has known, most of the places she has lived, and many of the news events-major or minor-of 3 her time. in her fiction, oates often returns to the rural landscapes of her childhood. the employment of eric county as the setting of her fictional creation “eden county” gives a sense of authenticity to the characterization in her early works. oates uses the rural, impoverished environment of her childhood in her first three books, the novel with shuddering fall (1964), the short story collections by the north gate (1963) and upon the sweeping flood (1966). oates is concerned about her childhood experiences which were deeply affected by the depression. many of her stories begin in the 1930s and focus on the family relationship, which are obviously inspired by her parents experiences. oates explains: “this was the world of my parents, who were young at the time i identify closely with my parents” (phillips, 1978: 217-218). the central figures of her novels include grandparents and parents, brothers and sisters, spouses and children-or at least some of these. as a serious writer, oates not only concerns about the family-tie, but shows a strong fascination with the phenomenon of contemporary america: its colliding social and economic forces, its philosophical contradictions, its wayward, often violent energies. oates pictures the united states as a seething, vibrant “wonderland” in which individual lives are frequently submitted to disorder, dislocation and extreme psychological turmoil. her protagonists, no matter what kinds of backgrounds they have-whether they are inner city dwellers, migrant workers, intellectuals or affluent suburbanites-all suffer intensely the conflicts or contradictions at the heart of their culture. oates presents such sufferings with both scrupulous accuracy and great compassion. johnson comments: “her particular genius is her ability to convey psychological states with unerring fidelity, and to relate the intense private experiences of her characters to the larger realities of american life” (johnson, 1987: 8), so as to underscore the spiritual, sexual, and intellectual decay of modern american society. employing a dense, elliptical prose style, oates portrays such cruel and horrific actions as arson, rape, riot, mental breakdown, murder (plain and fancy, with excursions into patricide, matricide, uxoricide, mass filicide), and suicide to delineate the forces of evil with which individuals must resist. because of infiltration of the violent episodes in her fictions, she is viewed as “the fourth bronte sister” (friedman, 1980: 1), and has been accused of using gratuitous and obsessive violence in her work. in responding to the charges, oates points out that: “serious writers, as distinct from entertainers or propagandists, take for their natural subjects the complexity of the 4 world, its evils as well as its goods the serious writer, after all, bears witness” (oates, 1981: 35). oates has been insisted that her violent materials accurately mirror the psychological and social convulsions of her time. oatess uniqueness exists in that she successfully presents the predicament of the individuals as results of pressure from the families as well as the contemporary society. oates usually arranges her characters in a certain kind of well-knit plot of familial and communal chronicles. she always looks upon the relationship among individuals, families and the society as a key reason to explain the predicament of her characters. modern family, as described in her works, is a mediator between the individual and society. troubled families, which oates has an extraordinary interest in, directly result in confused individual perception of the social and financial forces of a larger world, and meanwhile, reflect complex issues of power in contemporary society-economic dislocation, gender inequity and violence. economic changes in the world can involve families in such a way as to affect the individuals. subsequently the individuals would have to endure the torments brought by these changes and struggle for surviving. however, it usually appears to be invalid for an individual to fight back against the unfairness the family and the society imposes on him or her. in her five decades producing career, oatess sheer quantity and resourcefulness provide broad perspectives of criticism for her critics but also challenge their faculties. oatess critics in the 1970s and the early 1980s show keen interests in the texts study, underlining the thematic importance of her fiction and emphasizing her creative tendency. mary kathryn grants the tragic vision of joyce carol oates shows her unique insight into the tragedy and violence themes stuffed in oatess early works. grant insists that oatess tragic vision is “firmly rooted in the tradition of tragedy, in a belief in the self which struggle to achieve personality and identity and to transcend” (grant, 1978: 118). eileen teper bender in her joyce carol oates, artist in residence underlines the importance of oatess academic residence when she is commensal, a writer and critic at the same time (bender, 1987: xi). greg johnsons invisible writer concerns the central theme of the riddling nature of human identity in oatess works. joanne v. creightons joyce carol oates evaluates oatess works from the reader-response perspective. she focuses on “the apparent disharmony of subject and form and of emotional impact and thematic statement” at some of oatess works (creighton, 1978: 43). creighton suggests that the shocking and unrelenting violence, madness, and the compulsive sexual love that oates chronicles is too private to be 5 accepted by her readers. ellen g. friedman views oates as an anti-romantic who regards the american dream as “a false dream of conquest, control, ownership, and finally an impossible dream of overcoming mutability” (friedman, 1980: 177). in china, criticisms of oates and her works are much later than those in america. even though her famous novels such as them, a garden of the earthly delight, wonderland and the short stories