Identity Crisis in The Member of the Wedding 析《婚礼的成员》中的身份认同危机文献综述

 2022-01-05 07:01

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文献综述

1.Introduction1.1Research backgroundCarson McCullers (1917-1967) was a talented southern woman writer who was active in the American literary world in the 20th century. She was praised as The Finest Contemporary American Novelist by the famous contemporary British writer V.S. Pritchett. The contemporary American critic admits that she is the only person who can inherit the mantle of Faulkner. Graham Green even thinks that she possesses more poetics than Faulkner. Through her whole life, she suffered total three strokes, struggling against serious diseases and pain. Maybe only such a forceful woman can write so many marvelous works while enduring severe pain. Continuous operations, bitter pills, others misunderstanding and laughter, the brighter world outside the window weave her life. Actually, as the old saying goes,The great talent comes from adversity. The publication of every novel is closely connected with her experiences. In her works, there is always a sense of isolation or loneliness. During the time she was writing, the World War One was just over, but its influence still existed in peoples lives, especially something they once ignoring like racial oppression, homosexuality, traditional changes and so on. Actually, in the African American literature, the racial oppression and sexual discrimination draw more and more peoples attention. While Carson McCullers notices a special groupblack women. They not only suffered from the discrimination from the white people but also the black male. As women, they suffered more criticism than female white women. As wives, they are mostly humiliated by their husband and other older males. From social status, they are the lowest, just little higher than animals. Since they were born, they received little education until they can marry in return for some material rewards especially money. They are sad and lamentable. Under such a terrible circumstance, they thrive to get rid of their dual oppression and living an equal life with men. Whats more, as a writer, Carson McCullers is complicated. She has more emotions than others, which is also reflected in her novels. Homosexuality is seldom talked during that period while she expresses her opinion and experiences through her novel, which need us to find. As one of the most important American writers in the 20th century and a representative of southern literature, Carson McCullers is famous for creating grotesque characters. She is good at expressing a theme as eternal as love in a treacherous and absurd way-loneliness. Through her entire life, she has four novels, two plays, twenty short stories, lots of essays and so on. In her works, we can find there is always a lonely atmosphere revealing among the words and between the lines that almost all the characters are abnormal or grotesque. Therefore, some people call her works Southern Gothic novels. Among all her novels, The member of the wedding, her third novel, is regarded as her most important and mature work.Since its publication, The member of the wedding has drawn much attention from critics and readers. It is a novel with exquisite narrative and exquisite structure. While this novel is the only one to combine them together to reveal the identity crises of people in mid-twentieth century. In the form of the third person, this book tells the story of how a 12-year-old girl Frankie spends a long and tedious summer, desperately looking for spiritual comfort. In a short summer holiday, Frankie experiences a lot. At the end of the novel, the whole summer is over, Frankie and her father moves, Berenice quits her job, and on a clear autumn day, cousin John Henry dies of meningitis. The whole thing that originally surrounds her changes totally makes Frankie gradually understand the theory of adult worldthe world is lonely, but life is realistic.The novel is based on the authors own childhood experience. We can pry into her growth and understanding of life. Unlike other biludngsromnas, in this novel, Carson McCullers not only concentrates on a little girls growth, but also describes some minor characters implying controversial topics that people ignore. Whats more, this novel also leaves something warma new friend Mary at the end of the novel rather than complete loneliness. They both have the same dream of traveling around the world. The ending of the novel is different from most of her other works that express total desperation and tragedy. Carson McCullers still has expectations for happiness form the ending. At the same time, faced with a new beautiful and nice friend Mary, Frankie treats her with a look-up attitude which is harmful to maintain friendship. The arrangement of the plot actually implies that the growth of Frankie is still going.1.2 Literature ReviewThe publication of The member of the wedding brought Carson McCullers great success, laying her position in literature. As her third novel, this book shows her mature writing style and thoughts. She has gotten numerous praises from both the American critics and readers while studies about this novel have been full flourish.In fact, the existing critical texts before the 1970s mainly focused on her life experience, the grotesque elements as well as the theme of loneliness, isolation and alienation. Some critics attributed the limited themes found in McCullers novels to her narrow-mindedness and declining imaginative power in writing. Until recent twenty years, scholars realize that McCullers might have been misunderstood. Judith Giblin James distinguishes between pro-war and post-war criticism in her 1995 book Wunderkind: The reputation of Carson McCullers, 1940-1990, and furtherly enriches other methods of criticism. Recently, foreign studies on this novel fall into the following directions: racial identity, feminist, psychoanalysis, grotesque characters.However, the study of this work began relatively late in China and journal articles about this novel is comparatively fewer than those in English-speaking countries. One reason is that the Chinese versions of her novels were not published until late in the 1970s, thus she was not so well-known in China. The other reason is that Carson McCullers writing style and themeof alienation gets fewer understanding from readers. Until recently, her works have gotten some peoples support. Although this self-proclaimed fans of Carson McCullers club is a relatively small circle and her loneliness is not known by a wider audience like that of Garcia Mrquezs, Carson McCullers works still hold a unique position in the reading and literary circles.In recent 10 years, the study of McCullers novels has broken away from the one-sided description of irony and paradoxical narrative style. The discourse systems such as identity, race and gender in McCullers novels have enriched the study. At the same time, critics boldly try the practice of literary criticism in McCullers novels under the postmodern framework, which gradually makes the transcendence and subversion of the text the key words of the study.For instance, Zhou (2019) illustrates that the changes of Frankie from a little girl to a woman follow the socially constructed gender role of a white woman, defined by the southern order after series of struggles. He interprets Frankie as a representative of white woman. The author discusses the different roles of American white women during the Cold World Era, highlighting cultures influence on Frankie transgression of conventional identity. Jiang (2014) discussed the two major characters in The member of the weddingFrankie Addams and Berenice Sadie Brown from a Lacanian reading. Comparing the two roles, the author finds the similarities during their growth, thus drawing the conclusion that subjectivity is assumed by alienation in her thesis. Hou (2012) declares a brief summarization of the development and the basic features of Bildungsroman. And then he analyzes the novel from three aspectsthe character molding, the narrative structure and the content of the novel. Besides Zhang (2010) argues that The member of the wedding as an initiation story is how to inherit the traditional Bildungsromans. In the content, the author, based on her own life experience, demonstrates the main characters physical and psychological crisis. In the character, the author creates some other important characters to influence Frankies growth and concludes that the novel as a Bildungsroman has something unique. Whats more, Zhang (2017) analyzes the black woman characterBerenice. From the contradiction of her character and her identity, the author discusses black women painful experiences and her sympathy for black women, drawing the conclusion that the identity of the black racial community is not based on the abandonment of its uniqueness, but on finding a common ground between black traditional culture and white classic culture, to maintain and develop their own uniqueness. Furthermore, more and more critics pay their attention to the images that appear in the novel, trying to find something different. In fact, with the further research, critics find more and more minor but important characters in The member of the wedding, presenting peoples opinions of the novel and reacquainting the author herself.However, although a variety of research papers from different angels come out over the years, the identity crisis of and between the main characters, such as Frankie, Berenice and Henry, are not adequately discussed. Therefore, this thesis attempts to fill the research gap in hopes of improving and enriching the study of The member of the wedding.1.3 Need of the studyWe all know that the growth of main character in the Bildungsroman is vital. So we just pay more attention to studying their failure, success and even some beautiful description to demonstrate the growth of the main character. But sometimes we ignore the indispensable minor characters. Through all the literatures, we can see that these critics only focus on the main characters change of identity. In fact, there are many characters having identity crisis. Therefore, I will demonstrate three characters identity crisis from multiple dimensions.The thesis has both practical and academic meanings. On one hand, through studying different peoples identity crisis, we can know more about the theme of the novel, expanding from the traditional circle of Bildungsroman. From a different angel, we can see the logic that mysterious wings connect with each others, understanding why the author arranges these three identities. Therefore, its meaningful to enrich the research of the study. On the other hand, through realizing the importance of other characters, we can get to learn the harm of culturally and socially constructed gender and racial identities and will be beneficial for us to keep a watchful eye on every detail in the novel.

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