The World of Alienation: A Critical Study of Joyce Carol Oates’s >Wonderland< [异化的世界:乔伊斯•卡罗尔•欧茨长篇小说《奇境》研究], Master thesis, English Language and Literature, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi, China 2014 [application of Fromm's theories to art].

  • 乔伊斯•卡罗尔•欧茨是美国杰出的女作家,曾多次获诺贝尔文学奖提名。她的代表作《奇境》被认为是具有里程碑意义的分水岭之作。从《奇境》开始,欧茨的作品越来越关注人的内心世界,关注个人的生存状态和社会环境之间的冲突。本论文主要以埃里希•弗罗姆的异化理论为依据,力图揭示小说《奇境》对人物异化命运的关注。弗洛姆认为,异化是一种经验方式,通过这种方式,人体验到自己是一个陌生人。异化现象体现为个人与自我,个人与个人,个人与社会环境之间,以及个人与自己的信仰之间的冲突。此篇论文分别从以上四个方面对小说人物的心理异化进行了细致分析。论文主要由五章构成。第一章为引言。这一部分简要介绍了作者乔伊斯•卡罗尔•欧茨的创作经历,主要作品和成就,并且总结和概述了国内外对这部小说的相关研究,从而提出来本论文的研究目的与意义。第二章介绍了异化理论的起源与发展,为本论文的分析奠定了理论基础。第三章是论文的正文部分,由两部分组成,分析了《奇境》中主要人物的普遍异化现象。第一部分分别从人与社会环境之间关系的异化,人与家庭成员之间关系的异化,和人与自我关系的异化以及人与上帝之间关系的异化四个方面着重分析小说《奇境》中男性人物的异化。第二部分具体分析小说《奇境》中主要女性人物与家庭成员之间关系的异化以及她们的自我异化。不幸福的家庭生活使得女性人物的精神备受压抑,导致了她们自我人格的分裂。最终,不堪忍受精神与肉体双重折磨的她们陷入了自我迷失的困境之中。第四章则主要分析小说主人公对异化的反抗。小说人物在异化面前,主要是通过封闭自我空间,以及不断为自己创造希望来给予自己反抗异化的动力,但是成功的希望是渺茫的。最后是结论部分。这篇论文对小说中男性和女性人物的异化分析,体现了欧茨对人们心理需求与精神状态的极度关注,同时也揭露了在资本主义社会中,人们始终处于空虚,孤寂,幻灭的生活状态之中
  • Joyce Carol Oates is a distinguished female writer in America who has received several nominations for the Nobel Prize for Literature. As a representative work of Joyce Carol Oates, >Wonderland<has always been acclaimed as a >watershed novel<, pointing to its significance of milestone for Oates’s writing. Oates’s works increasingly concerns herself with people’s inner world and the conflicts between a state of being of the individual and the social environment from the minute she starts to create Wonderland. By using the alienation theory of Erich Fromm, the thesis tries to expose the extreme focus of Wonderland on the alienated destiny of characters. For Fromm, man experiences himself as an alien by a mode of experience. The alienation phenomenon is embodied in that man has the conflicts with itself, with its species, with its social environment or with its faith. The thesis presents the detailed analysis of characters’ psychological alienation from the angels mentioned above. The thesis consists of five chapters.– Introduction is the first chapter. This chapter incorporates the brief introduction to Joyce Carol Oates and her works, the content and literature review of the novel Wonderland. The aims of studying Wonderland from the view of alienation are also covered.– The second chapter interprets the origin and development of Alienation theory.– The third chapter includes two parts. It analyzes the universal alienation phenomena of main characters in Wonderland. The first part gives a detailed analysis for the alienation of the main male characters from four aspects such as the alienation from the social environment, from his family members, from himself, and from God. The second part mainly analyzes the alienation of women from their family life and themselves. Their spiritual repression brought by their unhappy family life makes them tend towards a self-division state. Finally, the stifling physical and mental torture results in women’s self- lost status.– The fourth chapter focuses on the characters’ desperate struggles against alienation. In front of alienation, the main characters in the novel react against the alienation through withdrawal into their own space and inventing hopes. But the chances of success are slim.– The final part is the conclusion. The analysis above indicates that Oates extremely pays close attention to people’s psychological needs and state of spirit, and shows the mental state of Americans in the capitalist society: emptiness, loneliness, disillusionment. [Author’s translation]

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Metadaten
Author:Fei Wang
Document Type:Dissertations
Language:Chinese
Year of first Publication:2014
Release Date:2016/09/29
Format:no download and copy possible
IdNo:Wang_Fei_2014
Writings about Erich Fromm (Secondary Literature):Dissertations / Dissertationen
Erich Fromm's Library and Erich Fromm Archive:Dissertations / Dissertationen
Licence (German):
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