英美文学Analysis of Trainspotting in the Light of Youth Subculture.doc

独创性（或创新性）声明本人声明所呈交的论文是我个人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的研究成果。尽我所知，除了文中特别加以标注和致谢中所罗列的内容以外，论文中不包含其他人已经发表或撰写过的研究成果；也不包含为获得西安电子科技大学或其它教育机构的学位或证书而使用过的材料。与我一同工作的同志对本研究所做的任何贡献均已在论文中做了明确的说明并表示了谢意。申请学位论文与资料若有不实之处，本人承担一切相关责任。本人签名： 日期 关于论文使用授权的说明本人完全了解西安电子科技大学有关保留和使用学位论文的规定，即：研究生在校攻读学位期间论文工作的知识产权单位属西安电子科技大学。本人保证毕业离校后，发表论文或使用论文工作成果时署名单位仍然为西安电子科技大学。学校有权保留送交论文的复印件，允许查阅和借阅论文；学校可以公布论文的全部或部分内容，可以允许采用影印、缩印或其它复制手段保存论文。（保密的论文在解密后遵守此规定）本学位论文属于保密在 年解密后适用本授权书。本人签名： 日期 导师签名： 日期 73摘要摘 要猜火车是苏格兰知名作家欧文威尔士的一部著名小说。小说生动地描写了二十世纪七十年代生活在苏格兰爱丁堡利兹地区四个年轻人在成长过程中遇到的种种困惑。七十年代时，英国经济开始走下坡路，随之而来的是失业率上升， 社会秩序混乱。在这种背景下，人们固有的信仰被摧毁,青年一代滋生了迷茫和彷徨的情绪,青年亚文化（对社会主流文化的一种抵抗，其具有边缘性、颠覆性、反社会及反传统等特点）随之应运而生。置身于青年亚文化圈中的青年,对自己的身份认同感到困惑。他们置身于主流文化之外, 不为主流社会接纳和承认, 而其自身的文化特征也使得身份认同成为一个难题。由此培植了一些亚文化群体。本文在青年亚文化观的基础上，试图挖掘猜火车中主人公们所表现出来的种种青年亚文化的倾向及特点，并对之进行深入分析和品评，以期引起更多的人关注青年群体，关注青年的健康成长。全文共有五章。第一章论文简述作者的写作及生活背景，介绍了这部小说的主要内容和主要人物。第二章是文献综述。介绍国内外对该小说的研究现状及相关批评理论。第三章论述青年亚文化观。在第四章中，论文从青年亚文化角度对该小说进行了全面分析。第五章是结论部分。关键词: 文化 青年亚文化 主流文化 猜火车 社会身份 AbstractAbstractTrainspotting is an extremely popular novel written by the famous British writer, Irving Welsh who is generally referred to as “ the poet laureate of the drug era”. It depicts the decadent life of four youths who lived in Edinburgh and the various confusions they came across during their growth. It provides a relatively real portrait of the young people living in Scotland and gives an accurate account of identity dilemma existing among them.In the 1970s, the economic condition in England began to go from bad to worth, thus the rate of employment went up and the social circumstances, the original belief of British people was destroyed, and the youth were at a loss and thus the youth subculture came into being, which is a culture that is again the mainstream culture, having a lot of characteristics, remarked as against the society and tradition, falling around edge. Being an outsider of this circle, the youth can not be accepted by the society and at the same time be admitted by the circle as well. Besides, the cultural feature of themselves also has its own problems. The relevant expressions are confused about the future, the resistance towards the power and the denying towards themselves.This thesis, from the perspective of youth subculture, attempts to analyze the tendencies and characteristics of youth subculture reflected in the characters in Trainspotting in order to arouse more and more people to show their deep concern over the youth group and the healthy development of them.The thesis falls into five chapters. Chapter one gives a brief introduction to the author, the novel itself, the writing background and the main characters. Chapter two is literature review, introducing the previous studies both at home and abroad and relevant critical theory. In chapter three, youth subculture is presented and analyzed. Chapter four provides a thorough analysis of the novel from the perspective of youth subculture. Chapter five is the conclusion.Key words: Culture; Youth subculture; Mainstream culture; Trainspotting; Social identity ContentsContents:独创性声明.I摘要.IIAbstract.IIIContents.VChapter One Introduction11.1 Introduction to the Author11.2 Introduction to the Novel31.3 Aim of the Study61.4 Organization of the Thesis7Chapter Two Literature Review82.1 Previous Studies82.2 Relevant Theories9Chapter Three The Youth Subculture143.1 Introduction to Youth Subculture143.2 Reasons Causing Youth Subculture143.2.1 Demography143.2.2 Economy153.2.3 Social Reforms163.2.4 Education173.2.5 Conscription193.2.6 Mass Culture203.2.7 Summary21Chapter Four Analysis of Trainspotting in Light of Youth Subculture224.1 About Choosing224.2 Rejection264.3 Addicted to Heroin304.4 Bodily Functions Control384.5 Self-centeredness414.6 Completely Isolated444.7 YouthMusic Genres464.8 Named “Friendship”514.9 Rebirth Desire564.10 The Disordered Sexual Relationship594.11 Summary65Chapter Five Conclusion66Bibliography69Acknowledgments. . 73Chapter One Introduction Chapter One Introduction1.1 Introduction to the Author Irvine Welsh was born in 1958, Leith, the port area of the Scottish capitalEdinburgh. Heis a Scottishnovelist, playwright and short story writer, having published seven novels and four collections of short stories. His firstnovel,Trainspotting, was published in 1993, and rumor has it that Welsh wrote it in the breaks while writing his thesis at Heriot-Watt Universitys Library, second floor. Set in the mid-1980s, it uses a series of loosely connected short stories to tell the story of a group of characters tied together by decaying friendships,heroinaddictionand stabs at escape from the oppressiveboredomand brutality of their lives in the housing schemes. Even now he is still known for his novelTrainspotting, due to the fact that this masterpiece is featured by a rawScots dialect, and brutal depiction of Edinburgh life. In his youth years, his family moved toMuirhouse in Edinburgh, when he was four, where the family stayed at localhousing schemes.His mother worked as a waitress. His father was a dock worker in Leith until bad health forced him to become a carpet salesman and he died when Welsh was 25. Although he was still a little child his family moved and then he grew up in Muirhouse, where he once described: A place like Muirhouse- lije fifteen years ago youd go to Muirhouse and itd be pretty much the same, sort of pretty grab housing schemes, not a lot there, but most people would have a bit of work and thered be a chance of moving into something different and moving on or whatever. But thats just been completely cut off and its become much more a kind of ghetto. (Irvine Welsh . BBC Documentary. 1992) After his high school education, he became an apprentice TV repairman until anelectric shockpersuaded him to move on to a series of other jobs.He left Edinburgh for the London punkscene in 1978, where he playedguitarand sang in The Pubic Lice and Stairway 13. During this period, he also made money through buying, renovating and selling property, thus making full use of them both. While it was starting from 1988 to 1990, it is the real time he began to write the remarkable novel Trainspotting in which it describes the life of the Scottish young people Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and other friends, who are addicted to the liberty use of drug and sex, and reflects the Scottish youths confusion and perplexity towards friendship jobs, sex, heroin, drug and social identity they faced in their growth. Besides Welsh has made several reading tours around the world and has been involved with his belovedhouse musicas aDJ, promoter and producer. Like many of his characters, he supportsHibernian F.C.(Hibs). The various sides of his background can also be traced in readers, who consist of building art-house, literati and academics and people who never thought they will buy the books about sexual life, alcohol , overusing drug as well as fashion class people and so forth.In addition, Irvine Welsh is widely known as the author of the book Trainspotting which was then turned into the movie of the same name directed by Danny Boyle and starred by Ewan McGregor. And that is part of the reason why his work Trainspotting can keep the top position for quite a long time of Booker Prize, which diversifies British culture placed dance music, and describes drug in a fulmination way against the deprivations of poverty and describe sexuality or ethnicity of the certain classes in Britain. He describes himself as not so much middle-class as upper-class. Im very much a gentleman of leisure. I write. I sit and look out of my window into the garden. I enjoy books. I love the density and complexity ofJane AustenandGeorge Eliot. I listen to music; I travel. I can go off to a film festival whenever I like. He also describes himself as monogamous: it sounds boring but its the way I am. All in all, he is so intelligent that Welshs books have made him a cult figure within the literary world since the 1990s. Several of his books have become best sellers and all have a mixture of comedy, drama and hard-hitting issues.the best-known beingTrainspotting(1996) which was even made into a box-office smash worldwide at the movies in 1996. Of his other works, one other has also been brought to screen,The Acid House(1998)，a trilogy of stories and though not as successful as Trainspotting commercially, became a cult success in his homeland of Scotland and the UK. At time of writing, Welsh is currently on a project writing the sequel to Trainspotting called Porn, which would give the success of the first film as well, should might make him even more famous when released as a film within the next year or so.1.2 Introduction to the Novel Trainspotting is the first novel by Irvine Welsh. It takes the form of a collection of short stories, written in either Scots, Scottish English or British English, revolving around various residents of Leith, Edinburgh who either use heroin or engage in destructive activities that are implicitly portrayed as heroin addictions, which is yet another exploration of the dark side of Scottish. The other main thing that distinguishes Trainspotting (apart from its massive success) is that it contains a sense of pathos, concern and sentiment. It not so much sparked a change in Scottish literature, but it opened a new door. In fact, it opened a whole wide door to the ex-junkie that a wannabe novelists effort as well as for the rave kulchure-books-n-slacking which are almost all without doubt utterly a waste of paper pulp and reading time. Dont underestimate this book though- theres good writing in here than the usual junk fuelled braggadocio - so much more than Andrew Greigs of the Scottish writing scene.Trainspottingcarries out an attack on two traditions in leftist thought, social democracy and revolutionary socialism. The first is represented and analyzed throughout the text. The second is evoked and attacked through allusion, and it is this evocation that Mitchells narration denigrates by proxy. “By paying attention to stray words and phrases, and by examining a key political allusion commentators have thus far ignored, this essay seeks to explain the political purpose of Bad Bloods narrative uncertainty, and to link it to what I will call Welshs literary anti-Trotskyism.”(Chapel Hill, 1987) The main character, Mark Renton, is at the center of a clique of nihilistic slacker junkies with no hopes and no possibilities, and only mind-numbing and spirit-crushing alternatives in the straight world they despise. This particular slice of humanity has nothing left but the blackest of humor and a sharpness of wit. American readers can use the glossary in the back to translate the slang and dialect-essential, since the dialogue makes the book. This is a bleak vision sung as musical comedy. As Childs (2005:241) argues: Trainspotting marked a literary shift because it created a new bestseller that was distinctly Scottish as well as distinctly working-class; it dealt with a subject and with an underclass that both society and fiction had largely chosen to ignore. Trainspotting was read in clubs and appealed to the chemical generation; it encouraged music shops to sell fiction, alerted the middle-class to another side of Edinburgh, which has the highest HIV infection rate in Britain, and reaffirmed the potential of literature to provoke moral outrage. Probably most famous for his gritty depiction of a gang of Scottish Heroin addicts,Trainspotting, Welsh focuses on the darker side of human nature and drug use. All of his novels are set in his native Scotland and filled with anti-heroes, small time crooks and hooligans. Welsh manages, however to imbue these characters with a sad humanity that makes them likable despite their obvious scumbaggery. Irvine Welsh is also known for writing in his native Edinburgh Scots dialect, making his prose challenging for the average reader unfamiliar with this style. Thereby the novel is characterized by a raw Scots dialect and brutal depiction of Edinburgh life. The whole novel describes the life of the Scottish young people Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and other friends, who are addicted to the liberty use of drug and sex, and reflects the Scottish youths confusion and perplexity towards friendship jobs, sex, heroin, drug and social identity they faced in their growth. As soon as this novel has been published, it has caused a tremendous stir. Sunday Times has once said, “Welsh writes the novel with a skill, wit and compassion that amounts to genius. He is the best thing that has happened to British writing in decades of the most significant writers in Britain.” “He writes with style, imagination, wit, and force, Times Literary supplemented. Welsh writes with such vile, relentless intensity that he makes Louis-Ferdinand Celine, the French master of defilement, looks like Little Miss Muffet, Courtney Weaver commented. The New York Times Book Review The corrupt Edinburgh cop-antihero of Irvine Welshs best novel since Trainspotting is an addictive personality in another sense: so appallingly powerful. His rapid-fire rhythm and pungent dialect of the dialogue carry the reader relentlessly toward the literally filthy denouement. Trainspotting is set in the late 1980s, which has been called the period of the voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent. At that time, post war Britain has undergone some social upheavals, which have lengthened the period of youth and made their lives distinctive and less predictable. It launched not alone the career of Irvine Welsh but arguably the youth under that time. Trainspotting is Irvine Welshs best novel besides indeed my favorite novel of all time. The whole book may be around drug and violence in some peoples eyes (Renton, Sick boy and Spud are completely immersed in drugs and Begbie is equally busy immersed in violence.) however in our eyes it naturally gives the readers a fully described picture of the life and emotion which the youth held at that moment. After avoiding conviction Renton nearly overdoses and finally gets clean by cold turkey by being imprisoned by his parents. He moves to London living a life of sobriety only to be joined by Sick Boy & Begbie who is on the run after a botched jewellery raid. They have to return to Scotland for the funeral of a close friend and previously clean cut Tommy who descended into drugs where they hook up with recently released Spud and using Rentons savings they purchase drugs which they eventually sell to a London dealer. But with such morally bereft characters will they share the money or will one scarper with all the loot? A truly entertaining read but a word of warning, it is written in Scottish (Leith) dialect and takes a bit of getting used to but it is definitely worth the effort. During the World War II, Britain has undergone a series of great disasters in every field, the economy substantially declining, the rate of the unemployment increasing and the peoples living standard dropping dramatically. UK lost its dominant position, who dominated the European and world economy during the 19th century as the Empire on which the sun never sets. Together with the changing social conditions, the youth began to show their dissatisfactions with social systems. Correspondingly, peoples values, beliefs and convictions have changed greatly, especially the youth. Therefore, the young groups of people are united on the basis of same age and often share common beliefs, values and attitudes. Members of a particular group will often signal their membership through a distinctive and symbolic use of style, which consists of clothing, music and so forth. Thus, various kinds of young people groups have appeared, namely Teddy boys, Beats, Mods, Rockers, Hippies, Skinheads and Punks, who employed music, drugs, and free sex as their weapons to express their dissatisfactions and discontent towards the society. Gradually, this cultural phenomenon develops into an independent culture, called youth subculture. Since the youth is influenced by liberty slogan, it is undeniable that some unstable social problems emerge, such as youth crime, drug problem, and promiscuous sex and so forth. Therefore, nowadays this topic has attracted many scholars to conduct a deep research on how to properly handle with these hard social factors.1.3 Aim of the Study Trainspotting is set in the late 1980s, which has been called the period of the voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent. The whole novel vividly describes the main character Renton and some Scottish youths problems and confusions in the daily life, including friends, work, sex, drug problems and social identity they faced in their growth, which accords with the concept of youth subculture. Thus this thesis will use the concept of youth subculture to analyze the features of the main protagonist Renton and his friends actions and the reasons why they behave in those ways.1.4 Organization of the Thesis The thesis consists of five chapters. In chapter one, an introduction is given to the novelist Irvine Welsh, the novel Trainspotting itself, the writing background as well as the main characters. Chapter two is literature review, presenting the previo