Strife and Alienation– On the Novel >Them<. The Hero of Jules Wendell’s Psychological Alienation [抗争与异化 - 试论小说《他们》中主人公朱尔斯•温德尔的心理异化], Master thesis, English Language and Literature, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, Shandong, China 2009 [Application of Fromm's theories to art]

  • 美国当代女作家乔伊斯•卡罗尔•欧茨(1938- )是当代美国文坛上一位多才多艺的高产作家,出版发表了大量的小说,诗集,剧本及数量丰富的评论文章和著作。在这些作品中,奥茨着重刻画了当代美国社会精神,肉体和道德观的沦落。奥茨以一种时而尖锐,时而模糊的散文风格描述了人们不得不面对的生活中诸如强奸,乱伦,谋杀,虐童,自杀等残酷不幸的一面。作为欧茨的现实主义作品之一,小说《他们》展现了从20世纪30年代大萧条时期到动荡不安的60年代期间,底层人民在追求美好生活和精神慰籍的过程中所遭遇的种种艰难和辛酸,反映了现代人面临的社会,家庭,甚至来自他们自身的多重压力。本文借助于心理分析的相关理论和概念分析小说《他们》,探讨主人公朱尔斯•温德尔对家庭生活和社会生活的幻灭主题以及揭示欧茨作品对现代人生存困境的思索。同时,本文作者尝试分析主人公悲剧的根源所在,从而引发读者对造成朱尔斯悲剧的社会问题的关注。本文由五个部分组成,第一部分为引论。首先简要概述欧茨的作品及其特点,然后对小说《他们》作了进一步的文献综述。在结合其他评论的基础上,提出以异化理论和社区理论为切入点来重新解读这部作品。通过分析主人公的执着寻求和不幸福的家庭生活以及充满困惑的社会生活,来揭示欧茨的创作意图。第一章论述了朱尔斯•温德尔在寻求实现个人的内心执着过程中痛苦挣扎的两个阶段。第一阶段是童年时代的主人公在乡村的生活经历。在这个时期,他通过多次的出走行为寻求幻想中的自由。离家出走是主人公首次对美好生活进行追求的尝试。第二阶段是其少年时期,主人公从乡村进入了城市。与平静的乡村生活相比,纷乱的城市却使主人公陷入了迷茫的精神困境。从童年时期开始,随着对内心执着的迷茫与日俱增,他热烈渴望拥有财富和理想中的爱人。在不幸福的家庭中看不到希望,他转而依靠自己来实现梦想的未来,决心成为一个自立的人。从童年时期开始,他一直认为自己就是一些书本中所宣扬的那个依靠自己打天下的灵魂人物。正如书中人物一样,他的确在人生的不同阶段经历了这样那样的所谓奇遇,然而,揭去恩人和爱人的面纱,他看到的只是无望的结局。一个接着一个的打击使得朱尔斯麻木不仁,只留下异变的灵魂。第二章将重心放在分析主人公家庭成员之间的冲突。本章分为三节。第一节主要分析主人公追寻父爱,以及和父亲们的关系-生父的影响,与养父相处和对理想父亲感到迷茫。第二节,由于渴望得到母爱而无法满足,主人公移情于他的爱人娜丁以期得到补偿。恋母情结的后果导致了他越寄希望于移情之人,理想与现实之间的差异就越大,幻灭感就越深,异化程度也越深。第三节是异化的兄妹关系在文本中的体现。一方面兄妹二人渴求情感的互通,因为这会为他们带来安全和支撑,另一方面,不管他们如何努力,最终哥哥和妹妹不得不被严酷的环境隔离,在孤立中各自为战。第三章是主人公心理异化的戏剧化再现。本章再次强调弗洛姆的异化理论和社区在城市中的缺失,对朱尔斯在社会中的异变进行诠释。在冷漠的城市中,他无法实现个体认同。社区的缺失亦使得他的挣扎变的无望,他一步步走向异化。为了实现灵魂的救赎,反抗严酷的环境,他最终拿起暴力这一武器。然而,暴力根源于个体的无能感,不能使他摆脱异化的宿命。无论主人公朱尔斯多么顽强,在无情的社会面前他是那么软弱,出生贫穷的他注定了悲剧结局。作为文章的主体部分,这三章内容相互结合,相互渗透,紧密联系。整部论文充分运用了相关的异化理论和社区概念,引出了完整的结论。结论部分总结了以上分析并指出研究的意义。通过描写一位普通男孩在追求个人的执着、理想家庭和社会生活中的幻与灭—直至消沉和心理的异化,欧茨在其作品中揭示了现代人的精神危机和生存困境
  • Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938) is one of the most prolific and versatile contemporary writers in America. She has published myriad novels, poetry, and plays, as well as books and articles of criticism. In these works, Oates focuses on what she views as the spiritual, sexual, and intellectual decline of modern American society. Employing a dense, elliptical prose style, she depicts such cruel and macabre actions as rape, incest, murder, child abuse, and suicide to delineate the forces of evil with which individuals must contend. As a realistic novel and one of the masterpieces of the author, >Them< reflects the psychological progress of the people of the lower class in American society from the great depression of 1930s to the turbulence of 1960s. In their pursuit of material life as well as spiritual comfort, they undergo many hardships and confront with the multiple pressures from family, society and even themselves. By employing the concepts and theories of psychoanalysis, this thesis aims to uncover the way in which Oates exposes the existential predicament of the modern people. The focus of the thesis is on Jules’s fantasy and frustration in familial and social life and on the reasons for his tragedy. This thesis consists of five parts. The first part contains a brief introduction on Oates’s works as well as the literature review on her novel them. Basing on the previous criticism on this novel, this thesis proposes Fromm’s theory of alienation and the concept of community in order to interpret the novel from a new perspective. Through the study of the protagonist’s unhappy familial life and perplexity towards social life, this thesis attempts to reveal the universal predicament of modern people.– Chapter One lays emphasis on two stages in which young Jules Wendall quests for personal longings. The first stage is Jules’s early years in the rural area as a little boy. During this period, he is searching for freedom by running away from home more than once. He longs to reach somewhere distant. Yet, he is left confused while staying with his family with no way out. The runaway action is his first try for a better life. The second stage is his teenage years during which he experiences a move to the urban city and suffers from great dilemma due to the big contrast between the chaotic urban life and the peaceful rural life. Obsessed from his childhood with personal longings, he increasingly falls into the strong desire of owning a sum of wealth and an ideal lover. Disappointed with his dysfunctional family, he sees himself as a self-made man and turns to himself for a successful future. Ever since his childhood, he has been obsessed with the fantasies that he is the central characters of a novel who makes fortune and capable of realizing his ambitious plans step by step. He, indeed, meets some adventures in different phases of his life. Actually, they are masked by benefactor, in practice, they prove to be unreliable. Suffered from one attack after another, Jules becomes numb with spiritual alienation.– Chapter Two concentrates on the conflicts of Jules and his family members. This chapter is divided into three parts. Part one mainly provides an analysis of Jules’s pursuit for paternal love and his relationship with his fathers. An inheritor of his biological father, he has to stay with his actual father while he dreams to have an ideal father. Part two demonstrates that, in his insatiable quest for maternal love, Jules Wendall transfers his mother-seeking towards his lover – Nadine in order to realize a particular kind of compensatory satisfaction. The more maternal affection he expects from his lover, the deeper he is trapped into disillusion that leads to his psychological alienation of mother image in ideal and reality. Part three gives a general presentation of the alienated sibling relationship in the novel. This part analyzes on the one hand the sibling’s hunger for emotional connections, which provide with them support and security; and on the other hand, however hard they try to fulfill this, impotently the siblings face no choice but to isolate with each other in the struggle for everyday survival under the influence of the brutal environment.– Chapter Three, with an elaboration of the dramatic representation of alienation and absence of community in the city, analyzes Jules Wendall’s struggle and disillusion in his social life. He cannot find identification with himself in the hostile city which does not provide any chance for him to be a better man. What is more, the absence of community in the city makes his strife become hopeless, drives him into the state of alienation. Opposing against the brutal surroundings, he turns to violent behavior for the spiritual rescue. Yet, since violence derives from a sense of impotence, it cannot protect him from being alienated. Born in a lower class, however hard he tries, Jules becomes powerless in front of the relentless society and doomed to be a tragedy. As the main body of this thesis, the three chapters unite and correlate with each other.– The whole thesis interprets fully the relevant theories of alienation and community which leads to a sound conclusion. It summarizes the analysis by pointing out the significance of the study. By portraying in the novel a whole picture of an ordinary boy with fantasy and disillusion, depression and alienated mind in the unremitting pursuit for an idealized familial and social life, Oates gives us a deep insight into the existential predicament of people as a whole in the contemporary world.

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Metadaten
Author:Yuqing Wang
Document Type:Dissertations
Language:Chinese
Year of first Publication:2009
Release Date:2014/01/28
Format:no copy existent / keine Kopie vorhanden
IdNo:Wang_Yuqing_2009
Writings about Erich Fromm (Secondary Literature):Dissertations / Dissertationen
Erich Fromm's Library and Erich Fromm Archive:Dissertations / Dissertationen
Licence (German):
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