本科英语专业毕业论文-论奥康纳短篇小说的哥特艺术风格.doc

山东财经大学本科毕业论文(设计)题目： 论奥康纳短篇小说的哥特艺术风格 学 院 外国语学院 专 业 英语 班 级 xxxxxx 学 号 xxxxxxxxxxxxx 姓 名 xxx 指导教师 xxx 大学教务处制二一四年五月山东财经大学学士学位论文xxxx大学学士学位论文原创性声明本人郑重声明：所呈交的学位论文，是本人在导师的指导下进行研究工作所取得的成果。除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本论文不含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对本文的研究做出重要贡献的个人和集体，均已在论文中作了明确的说明并表示了谢意。本声明的法律结果由本人承担。日期填写定稿日期5月1日。教师学生都要手写签名学位论文作者签名： 年 月 日xxxx大学关于论文使用授权的说明本人完全了解山东财经大学有关保留、使用学士学位论文的规定，即：学校有权保留、送交论文的复印件，允许论文被查阅，学校可以公布论文的全部或部分内容，可以采用影印或其他复制手段保存论文。日期填写定稿日期5月1日。教师学生都要手写签名指导教师签名： 论文作者签名： 年 月 日 年 月 日On Gothic Art of Flannery OConners Short Stories byxxxxxUnder the Supervision ofxxxxxxSubmitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of ArtsSchool of Foreign StudiesxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxMay 2014B. A. Thesis of Shandong University of Finance and EconomicsAcknowledgementsUpon the completion of the thesis, first of all, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Xu Wenru, for her enlightening guidance, incessant encouragement and careful modification throughout the process of writing this thesis. Without her patience and prudence, I could not have brought my thesis to its present form. Besides, I am also greatly indebted to other beloved teachers in the School of Foreign Studies of Shandong University of Finance and Economics, for their valuable and informative courses which have benefited me a lot during my college years.Last but not the least, I am also much obliged to all my friends who have helped me with my thesis. ABSTRACTOn Gothic Art of Flannery OConners Short Stories xxxxxxxFlannery Oconner is regarded as one of the most infulencial fiction writters in American Southern Literature. She achieved two novels and 31 short stories during her short life. Ehlighted by Christanity, OConner has always been renowed as a “Roman Catholic writer”. With the insight into the reality of Southern America after World War II, her works represented in a clod and dispassionate way, full of stark voilence and death, aiming to expose the evilness of humans and wake up their religious consciousness. Voilence and death as well as religious concern are two common features in OConnors works. This thesis analysizes her unique gothic art, which uses bizarre figures, gloomy southern settings, gothic themes and plots, in order to have a better understanding of the corrupted spiritual world in Southern America after World War II. Key words: Flannery OConnor;short stories; gothic art 摘要论佛兰纳里奥康纳短篇小说的哥特艺术xxxxxxxxxx佛兰纳里奥康纳是美国南方文学中颇具影响力的女作家。她一生虽然短暂，但著有两部长篇小说和31篇短篇小说。奥康纳是一位虔诚的基督教徒，她的作品也具有浓厚的宗教主义，因此奥康纳也被称为“天主教小说家”。她的作品是冷酷无情的，充斥着暴力和死亡，旨在唤醒人们的宗教意识和对现实社会的认识，暴力死亡和宗教是奥康纳小说的两大特点。该论文分析奥康纳短篇小说独特的哥特艺术，解读她笔下的畸人形象，阴郁的南方背景，令人恐惧的故事情节，前面了解二战后美国南方崩溃的精神世界。关键词：佛兰纳里奥康纳；短篇小说: 哥特艺术CONTENTSAcknowledgementsiiAbstract.iiiAbstract in ChineseivIntroduction1Chapter One Gothic Genre in Western Literature.3I. Formation of Gothic Genre3II. Gothic Tradition in American Literature5Chapter Two Parody of Gothic Plot and Characters.7I. Gothic Images and Black Comedy7II. Grotesque Figures9Chapter Three Gothic Features for OConnor12I. Violence and Death12II. Christian Ethics . . . 14Conclusion.16Works Cited.17如有三级标题，可以i. ii. iii. iv. 编写，为简明，建议目录中尽量不要写三级标题，正文中可有三级标题。注意各级标题大小写，确保目录中的标题、页码与正文中的标题、页码保持对应vB. A. Thesis of Shandong University of Finance and EconomicsIntroductionFlannery OConnor (1925-1964) was born in the southern city of Savannah, Georgia. Both of her parents were from families prominent in Georgias Catholic Church. The year she was born, her father developed a rare disease called lupus and he died of the disease in 1941. By that time the family was living in a small southern town of Milledgeville, Georgia, in a house owned by Flannerys mother. Most of her lupus-shortened life was spent in that small town. The only interruption of her Georgian existance was a five-year period spent partly at lowa, taking a Master of Fine Art degree , partily at Yaddo in New York, a place providing a small group of writers with a home and a place to work for a short time. OConnor had always wanted to be a writer. After her graduation, she asked to be accepted at a writing program at the State University of Iowa. The head of the school found it difficult to understand her southern speech. Then he was asked to see some examples of her works. He saw immediately that the writing was full of imagination and bright with knowledge. Once she explained to others why she wrote, Because I am good at it. (OConnor 81) As Elizabeth Bishop puts, I am sure her few books will live on and on in American literatuer. They are narrow, possibly, but they are clear, hard, vivid, and full of bits of description, phrases and an odd insight that contains more real poetry than a dozen of poems. (Giroux 237)OConnor do not talk about herself in her stories, while silent and distant anger explodes from the quiet surface of her stories. Critics see her anger as the search to save her moral being through her belief in Jesus Christ. Others do not deny her Roman Catholic religious beliefs. Yet they see her presenting things themselves instead of writing things. OConnor is not a prolific writer because the disease lupus tortures her much. During the short life, she altoghterr writes two novels, Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960), 31 short stories , most of which are collected in A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955) and Everthing That Rises Must Converge (1965). Three of her short stories, A Circle in the Fire, Greenleaf, Everything That Rises Must Converge have been nominated for OHenry Awards separately in1954, 1956 and 1962. OConnor died in 1964 at the age of 39. Alice Wlker has pity for OConnors early death, “she was an artist who thought she might die yough, and who then knew for certain she she would. Her view of her characters pierces right through to the skull” (Walker 71).The work discussed in this thesis is gothic art of Flannery OConnor in her short stories. Death, violence, grotesque and religious faith has always been rhe major themes in OConnors fictions, which are distinctive characteristics of gothic novels. As the studies show, American Southern writers are full nurtured from a great gothic tradition in their writings and Southern Renaissance “has become synonymous with the grotesque” (White 1). Being an important writer in American Southern literature, OConnor, who roots deeply in her profound local culture, raises much attention from readers and critics for her innovation to traditional gothic writings. To most readers, OConnors fictions are odd, cold and diapassionate, always in stark violent and death. She prefers freak fatalities and awfulness to wake up religious consciousness of people. As a devout Catholic, she fully awares few readrs share her faith in religion. Thus she believes “to the hard of hearing your shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures” (Fitzgerald 33). This thesis focuses on OConnors unique use of grotesque and how she presents her thoughts threough gothic elements and vehicles. The thesis consists of three chapters. The first chapter briefly introduces gothic traditon in American literature, as well as gothic genre in American Southern literature. Chapter two ananlsizes gothic devices in her works, including gothic characters and settings. Chapter three deals with distincitve features of gothic in her writings, which refers to the motif of violence,death and religous redemption.Chapter One Gothic Genre in Western LiteratureHaving a touch of gothic genre will help us understand OConnor in an exact and comprensive way. Flannery OConnor, who is known as the best writerr in Southern literature only next to William Faulkner, penetrates the utmost reality of the modern world by applying ubiquitous gothic elements. The main theme of her writing is moral-teaching though she never explains it eagerly. “Fiction writing is very seldom a matter of saying things; it is a matter of showing things” (Fitzgerald 93).I. Formaton of Gothic GenreThe word “Gothic” has undergone many changes and expansions. In its earliest sense, it denotes the language and ethnic identity of the Goths, a savage tribute living in northeast border of Roman empire. Gothic style is prevenlent in the Middle Ages, one that is viewed as “Dark Age” for the ignorance of knowledge. Thus the word “gothic” contsins the meaning of “medieval” and”barbarous” in the eighteenth century. the word “Gothic” also refers to a unique style of architecture according to Hornby, a kind of architecture built in the style that was popular in Western Europe from the 12th century to the 16th centuries, and which has pointed arches, windows, and tall thin pillars and a novel written in the style popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, which described romantic adventures in mysterious or frightening surroundings. (Hornby 883) The “Gothic”, in a literary sense, refers to a genre of literature involves poetry, fiction, drama and film, which is “full of depicts of murders and supernatural things to thrill readers” (Han 36), and “deals with the strange, mysterious, and supernatural designed to invoke suspense and terror in readers” (Zhao 283). The early gothic classics are only novels that still remains important in modern Gothic writing. It flourishes in the late eighteenth century and early ninteenth century. The first Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story, written by Horace Walpole, is immensely successful among readers, making many of them afraid to go to bed at that time. It is the first attempt to find “a tale of amusing fiction upon the basis of the ancient romance of chivalry” (Walter 115) . whats more, the novel was “an attempt to blend the two kinds of romance, the ancient and the modern” (Horace 19). The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story has occupied the pioneering e wide poplace in the history of gothic and an irreplaceable one in English Literature. The pularity of Gothic novel initiatives many followers. Among them, Ann Radcliff and Mathew Gregory Lewis are two most famous ones for their respective work The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Monk. In 1794, Ann Radcliffe publishes her most famous gothic novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho, which is noted for its poetic description of landscape. The Monk(1796) comes out two years later which is renowed for appalling description of violence and sexuality. Another classic Gothic novel is The Italian written by Radcliffe in 1797, thus gothic genre is fully developed. The German critic, Wolfgang Kayser puts forward grotesque as a genre in his book The Grotesque Art and Literature,That the word “grotesque” applies to three different realms-the creative process, the work of art itself, and its reception-is siginificant and appropriate as an indication that it has the makings of a basic esthetic catagery. (Kayser, 179)Kayser believes the nature of grotesque is “the astranged world” (184). The plots of Gothic novel are usually related to killing ones life, villian, rape, devil-hero, which is closely related to absurdity and abnormality. Philip Thompson views gothic as “a fundamentally ambivalent thing, as a violent clash of opposites” (Thompson 11). The rise of Gothic novels keeps a close tie with western culture and tradition. It not only worships ancient legends, myth and folktales, but also roots deeeply in Bible and Christain. It deals with dark emotions and extreme modes, always reveals the evil side of huamn beings. The settings in Gothic novels include castles, dark or hidden tunnels; atmosphere of mystery and suspense that arouses fear and terror; extraordinary portrait of images and fantastic plot that every story has a stereotyped ending. The great influence of Gothic genre makes scholars realize that “Gothic novels have exerted significant influence on the literature of later generations and on every European literature. They have exerted great effect on the American literature, Hawthorn and Allen Poe in particular” (Zhao 283). In the Romantic period, Zastrozzi (1810) by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelleys Frankenstein are publicly-known Gothic novels. Charlotte Bronts Jane Eyre (1847) and Emily Bronts Wuthering Heights (1847) in the ninteenth century are also acknowledged as Gothic novels. Charles Dickens is another great writer heavily influenced by Gothic novels. Oliver Twist (1837-8), Bleak House (1854), Great Expectations (1861) and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870) contain Gothic mood and themes.II. Gothic Tradition in American TraditionGothic novel begins at the end of nineteenth century in American. Born of the same heritage, the American writers share some similarities with European counterparts , but also develop their own features. Charles Brockden Brown is a pioneer of American gothic novel who draw his inspiration on British Gothic writers , such as Ann Radeliffe. Wieland is his first and best-known work, which begins the tradition of American Gothic novel. In the nineteenth century, Edgar Ellen Poe, Herman Melville and Hawthorne are the mainstream writers who elevate American Gothic. Poe may be the most gothic one among them since he is renowed for detective stories and the theme of portraying the death of a beautiful lady. Poe is a master of horror fiction and he claims that “My terror is not of Germany, but of the soul” (Xiao 98). Anthor prominent innovation dunring that time is that the style of Gothic literature is not cnfined to novels. Short stories which are prefered by Poe and Hawthore and later enriched by William Faulker and Flannery OConnor dominant the area of Gothic literature. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the mordern age adds new contents and layers to Gothic literature and sees more social reality such as racial discirmination, , poverty and child abuse. That phenomenon is probably due to the two World War, the cold War, the drugs and the disaster brought by new technology which makes contemporary writers like Willam Faulker concern more about social issues . Thus the Gothic has become the most suitable formation for American writers to manifest their sentiments. Gothic fiction can be seen continously during the post war period then it rises to a height of prosperity when the “South Renassissance” begins when it becomes the most popular literature form in America. William Faulker, Flannery OConnor are representive writers of Gothic genre in American South. They focuses on the complicated feelings of people in diffferent classes in American Southern society and closely pay attention to the historical, social and cultural developmentof the South. Gothic genre of American southern literature employs the deformed and the bizzare characters as well as using exaggerate descriptions to imply deep and complex concoren for human fate and social reality. Flannery OConnor, who works grotesqueto its fullest in her fiction, depicts various weird figures revealing a desolate spiritual world of the Southern America after World War II. Gothic is one main and distinctive feature of OConnors works which makes her remarkable in American literature. She inhertiages traditional Gothic essence then makes innovation and enrichment through her religious motif and characterization as well as narrative techniques.Chapter TwoGothic Vehicles in Short StoriesIn this chapter, we mainly examine OConnors devices of Gothic in her short stories through analysizing the symbolic images, narritative technique and the various abnormal characters. OConnors stories seem to be set in an ordinary background of American South, but acually they all contain Gothice elements and vivd use of Gothic vehicles.I.Gothic Images and Black Comedy Noted for a short stories writer, OConnor is good at using simbolic images to create a sense of myth. Different from traditonal Gothic fiction that intends to create a horrible and suspenseful atmosterious, OConnors short storeies shaw a combination of tragedy and comedy, which is known as black comedy. She inheritages traditional Gothic techniques and innovatively employ it in her fiction. The followings will center on A Good Man Is Hard to Find to scrutinize her Gothic vehicles of symbolic images and black comedy.A Good Man Is Hard to Find, one of her most famous short stories, tells a story of an American family travelling to Florida on weekends.” The grandmother didnt want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee” (OConnor, The Complete Short Stories, 117). On the way, the old lady mentioned a house which tirggered the curiosity of the children. Failed to find that house, the grandmother soon realized that the house was actually located in Tennessee. She was shamed and overturned her basket. In a hurrry, a cat that she set in the basket secretly jumped on Baileys shoulder. Frightened by the cat, Bailey lost control of the car and it turned over landing on the right side in a ditch. Unfortunately. The families ancountered the escaped prisions and were crucially.shot. Symbolic objects like the sun, hats and also the color exist everywhere in this short story. The five characters are all wearing hats. The grandmother had on a “navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim”