A New Historicism Approach to The Awakening 从新历史主义角度解读《觉醒》文献综述

 2021-10-13 20:14:00

毕业论文课题相关文献综述

Literature ReviewKate Chopin is regarded as a well-known woman feminist writer in America during 19 century due to the deep concern for womens embarrassing condition reflected in her works. At her age, the social position of females was far from been raised, though material civilization in the west has already developed. During her lifetime, she had written many short stories and published two collections, including the one called The story of an hour, which played an important role in Chopins life. One of her famous novels is The Awakening, which is now regarded as one of the feminist masterpieces. However, at that time, this novel contributed to heated controversial effects because it had exposed some sensitive social problems. The Awakening is Chopins most important novel, which made she offended many readers since 1899, when it was first published. Before this novel published, Chopin had been a successful writer of local colorist, and many critics were expecting another novel with the same feature. However, what they were waiting for was The Awakening, a novel which received an overwhelmingly negative response from American general readers and critics. Many people thought this novel was unhealthy because it violated the traditional rule towards women. The St. Louise Post published an article to claim that the book was not suitable for those women who obeyed morality to read and labeled it as moral poison. For the formidable negative and controversial comments, this novel had been kept in oblivion for more than fifty years until the success of the second wave of womens movement. The reason for this novel been abandoned for more than half a century was notthat Chopins main idea disobeyed the morality of that time, but her intention to arise womens attention to their own freedom and status. New historicism attaches importance to the relation of human activities from the background of the politics, economy and ideology to text in order to analyze the text better. Therefore, by using new historical criticism to analyze the background of the text and Chopins own experience, it will be much easier to understand Chopins deep concern for womens awakening. 1. Previous studies on The Awakening Since the second wave of womens movement, The Awakening had been rushed into peoples eyes. Scholars regarded this novel as a worth treasure to study womens consciousness at that time. After the civil war of America, some women walked out from the circle of the tradition and tried to struggle for more rights and new roles. Undoubtedly, this kind of consciousness urged them to identify their meaning for living. However, this trend of feminism didnt orient the society, but the main role of women was identified as a wife and a mother. Under this background, The Awakening seems to be a very important masterpiece to study and actually many scholars choose this novel to discuss its heroin and her famine consciousness.Some scholars pay much attention to the characters of the novel and make comparison between them, especially between the heroin Edna and Madame Ratignolle. Jin Li and Qin yaqing(2003) believe that Edna is a new woman who pursues personal freedom and chases for meaning of her life. They regard Edna as Eve in 19th century because she is brave enough to explore the identification of herself. Zhuang Yan(2011) also refers that Edna is another image of Eve because in some degree she possesses self-awareness as Eve does. Furthermore, Edna needs a man of nothing to play the role of unconventional Adam, who can manifest her uniqueness and independence and that man is Robert Pontellier.Actually,most scholars concern for the theme of this novel and show great interest in the analysis of the change of heroines character in order to analyze the process of her awakening. Duan Meiting(2011) believes that there are four factors affect Ednas awakening. The first one which can be defined as potential factor is Ednas eager for freedom. Under the background of the first womens movement, she doesnt want to be a traditional woman who is just the mother of her child and wife of her husband. She can give up money and other materials, even sacrifice herself for her child, but she wont give up herself. The second is external factor, the open environment of Grand Isle, which aroused her passion towards life. At the same time, she had attracted by the charm of the Creole and made her realize womans whole existence. The third factor is Ednas experience of swimming which catalyzed her awakening. When she learned how to swim, a feeling of exultation overtook her and made her grow daring and reckless. She wanted to swim far out and reach her own freedom. The last factor which decides her complete awakening is her despair towards happiness when Robert went back and refused her love. She suddenly realized that the achievement of freedom and independence should rely on herself but not anyone else. Some scholars analyze Ednas process of awakening from another angle which can be divided into three respects. Yu Louqin(2009) thinks that Ednas awakening first occur in her marriage and then extend to the awakening of her consciousness of herself, and at last female consciousness of sex. The process of her awakening is step by step but not at the same time or just limited in one respect. Chen Pengfei(2013) also support this point and he believes that Ednas awakening can be analyzed from three steps. They are abandoning her marriage, pursuing romance and being addicted to her enjoyment. There are similarities between those scholars who study the process of Ednad awakening though they analyze the text from different aspects.2. New Historicism2.1 Origin and DevelopmentHistoricism is a branch of historiography which refers to the practices of the historians art and science. It is difficult to trace the definite origin of New Historicism but it is commonly believed that it first developed in the 1980s through the work of the critic Stephen Greenblatt. In 1982, Stephen Greenblatt remarked in a special issue of Genre that The new historicism erodes the firm ground of both criticism and literature. Though around 1990 he used it again in order to deny that he was the man who established this theory because he thought the enforced coherence would destroy its power of criticism, the term has already designated an identifiable scholarly method.In 1990s, New Historicism has been developed quickly and absorbed some theoretical achievements from Marxism, Foucaults power discourse and Postmodernism. 2.2 DefinitionNew Historicism combined the dimensions of text and history in order to provide a new perspective for literature study. New Historicism supports to bring the research of history to the study of literary text and points out that literature and history affect each other. New Historicist highlights the un-continuity and rapture of history, tries to represent the sociocultural environment of time and search and grasp the meaning of literary text (Zhong 8).New historicists hold that each text is the product of politics, economy and history and pure formal analysis doesnt exist, which can be understood as the complex relation between the text and ideology. From the view of Louis Althusser，ideology is some kind of convention which people relied on in order to imagine and realize themselves. Therefore, ideology exist everywhere, it not only penetrates literature but also surpasses literature. New historicism pays much attention to the relationship of text and real historical events. From the aspect of history, literature is an artistic form to make a conspicuous show of the real appearance of history. There are five assumptions that New Historicists stick to, which were summarized by Veeser as following:(1) every expressive act is embedded in a network of material practices;(2) Every act of critique and unmasking uses the tools it condemns and risks falling prey to the practice it exposes;(3) Literary and non-literary texts circulate inseparably;(4) No discourse gives access to unchanging truths or expresses unalterable human nature;A critical method and a language adequate to describe culture under capitalism participate in the economy they describe.(Dai 259-260) 2.3 Historicity of texts and textuality of historyDifferent new historicists may have different inclinations to historicity and textuality but a new historicist position never privileges historicity and textuality to the exclusion of either. Louis Adrian Montrose claimed that there are two aspects of new historicism, historicity of texts and textuality of history.Textuality of history support that history is not fixed and there are many blank points for people to explain by texts. we can have no access to a full and authentic past, a live material existence, unmediated by the surving textual traces of the society in question---traces whose survival we cannot assume to be merely contingent but must rather presume to be at least partially consequent upon complex and subtle social process of preservation and effacement(Montrose 20). That means there is no possibility for readers to touch the complete history or know the coherence of history without the texts as carriers of history. Historicity of texts emphasize that all the literature is the product of the unique culture, politics and economy. Each text should be analyzed during the specific environment. By the Historicity of Texts, it mean to suggest the cultural specificity, the social embedment, of all modes of writing---not only the texts that critics study but also the texts in which we study them(Montrose 20). in conclusion, new historicism claims that texts are produced from the specific background and history is usually presented by texts. However, texts cannot restore history because they are not objective but depend on the person who wrote them and authors personal political and ideological ideas.

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