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1、本科毕业设计（论文）题 目： “A Wall, a Flight of Stairs, an Open Road”-A Brief Interpretation of the Female Images in Carson McCullerss Major Works卡森麦卡勒斯作品中女主人公形象分析学 院： 外国语学院 专 业： 英语 学 号： 070703217 学生姓名： 指导教师： 职 称： 讲师 二零一一年六月“A Wall, a Flight of Stairs, an Open Road”-A Brief Interpretation of the Female Images i
2、n Carson McCullerss Major Works A THESISSUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OFBACHELOR OF ARTSBYSu XixinSUPERVISED BYZhao LiENGLISH DEPARTMENTSCHOOL OF FOREIGN STUDIESNANJING FORESTRY UNIVERSITYJUNE 2011AcknowledgementsUpon the completion of this thesis, I would like t
3、o express my hearty appreciation to all those who have granted me invaluable help.First, I am especially indebted to Ms. Zhao Li, my supervisor, for her engagement and guidance and help while this paper was being written.I should also convey my sincere gratitude to my classmates, Miss Jiang Lingyun,
4、 Miss He Lin, Miss He Baofeng, and especially Miss Luo Ning, for their warm support to this paper.Last but not least, special thanks should also go to my mother, without whose support I should never have fulfilled my studies in this university.AbstractCarson McCullers, one of the most influential wr
5、iters in America, is an extraordinary woman who leaves us a bundle of splendid novels despite her short and hard life. Writing about outcasts, dreamers and misfits in the Deep South, Carson McCullers was acclaimed for her sympathetic depictions of loneliness, the need for understanding and the searc
6、h for love. Her masterpieces of eccentrics, failed prodigies, injustice and hope, written when she was in her twenties, explore the human condition with humor and pathos. Standing from the perspective of Bildungsroman and against in the backdrop of the Southern Renaissance, this paper aims to demons
7、trate that the female protagonists in Carsons several major works are all positive images of the new south. They do not succumb to patriarchal bonds or lose their identity due to poverty and setbacks. Instead, they all fight and struggle for their dream, just like their creator Carson McCullers hers
8、elf. Though detailed analysis, and focused on the transition of the protagonists respectively, this paper jumps out of conventional viewpoints of gothic or grotesque themes and alienation. Rather, it proposes that from the angle of Bildungsroman, these anti-southern-belle protagonists are a rising a
9、nd expanding generation in the Southern Renaissance, growing up together with the new south. Key words: Carson McCullers, Bildungsroman, adolescence, Southern Renaissance摘要卡森麦卡勒斯是美国最富影响力的作家之一。尽管她的一生短暂又多舛，这位杰出的女作家给我们留下一系列卓越的作品。麦卡勒斯善于刻画南方深处的流浪儿，异类，还有梦想家们，因其富有同情心地描写人的孤独，对理解和真爱的渴望而饱受赞誉。在麦卡勒斯20多岁时，她写的一系列
10、探讨怪人、失败的天才、不公、希望的生存状况的杰作既幽默又伤感。在美国南方文艺复兴的背景下，本论文试着从成长小说的角度来证明卡森几部主要作品中的女主人公的积极形象都代表着一个全新的南方。尽管贫穷而饱受挫折，这些女孩没有向父权制社会的束缚低头，也没有失去自我认同。相反的，她们为了自己的梦想而抗争而挣扎，就像她们的创造者卡森麦卡勒斯一样。通过细致的分析来重点探讨女主人公各自的转变过程,本文摒弃哥特主题和人心疏离的传统观点。笔者转而从成长小说的角度来证明这些反南方淑女形象的主人公们是南方文艺复兴中日益崛起的一股新兴力量，她们和新南方共同成长。关键词：卡森麦卡勒斯； 成长小说； 青春期；南方文艺复兴Co
11、ntents1. Introduction -11.1Background information of Carson McCullers-11.2The definition of the Southern Renaissance-31.3The definition of Bildungsroman-42. Demonstration -52.1The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter-Mick Kelly -52.1.1Her inside room and outside room -62.1.2Growing up-clinging to dream despite
12、destitute -72.1.3The Member of the Wedding-Frankie-92.2F. Jasmine escaping the cell of Frankie the freak -102.2.2. Growing up-finding the answer to “Who am I” -112.3. “Wunderkind”-“bienchen” -122.3.1. From blind obedience to her original self-132.3.2. Growing up - speaking out her mind-132.4.An unfi
13、nished melody-153. Conclusion -16Notes-18Works Cited-19Bibliography-20“A Wall, a Flight of Stairs, an Open Road”- A Brief Interpretation of the Female Images in Carson McCullerss Major Works 1. Introduction1.1 Background information of Carson McCullers Carson McCullers was born Lula Carson Smith in
14、Columbus, Georgia in 1917. McCullers lived a short life, but this did not prevent her from becoming a versatile and talented writer. She wrote some bestsellers, became rich and famous, suffered emotional upheavals, and died at 50. Her first novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter came out in 1940 when sh
15、e was only 23 years old. The early 1940s was her most creative time of writing and she wrote almost all her major works during this time: Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941), The Ballad of the Sad Caf (1943), and The Member of the Wedding (1946). Her novels have similar themes and are all set in a sm
16、all town in the South, deep in the summer heat. Loneliness and spiritual isolation are the perpetual themes of McCullerss novels. It was the grotesque, freakish, and incongruous human condition that caught her attention. (Chang 274) However, McCullers also takes care of other themes like racial, rel
17、igious and cultural concerns. In her fictional world, there is an outstanding group: adolescents who find it hard to love and live normal lives. In this regard, Carson McCullers successfully depicts a series of struggling teenage girls such as Mick Kelly, Frankie and Frances. They are tall and gangl
18、y boyish girls, all having some haunting sorrow. In this sense, I think we can also view McCullers as an author of initiation stories (namely Bildungsroman, which will be discussed in the following section). Through her vivid description, McCullers offers us a rare insight into the awkwardness and f
19、rustration associated adolescence, which represent the paradoxes of provincial American South when faced with changes and revolutions. Since she was a child, McCullers has been an out-of-the-ordinary child. She never cared to behave like a belle, which made her an offbeat girl among her peers. In Th
20、e Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers, Virginia Spencer Carr said McCullers always dressed herself in some dirty sneakers and loose khaki suits or shorts. Silk stockings and dresses were a nuisance to her because they made her feel uneasy. Tall, thin, and moon-faced, McCullers did not car
21、e whether others were mocking her or not, she just went her own path. All her characters are an epitome of herself in this or that regard. They seek, with McCullers, after the true meanings of their lives, regardless of traditional stereotypes and difficult surroundings. Through their painful growin
22、g up, they show to the world their courage and ambition.Native of south, Carson McCullers spent all her childhood and adolescence in a small town of Georgia. She was always vacillating between two kinds of feelings toward south: on the one hand, the unenlightened old-fashioned small town was the nig
23、htmare of her childhood; on the other hand, she could never feel the sense of belonging in the bustling and modern New York. As a southern writer, she was bound together with the language, music, the natural scenery as well as the memory of south. So she kept returning to her hometown again and agai
24、n after escaping from it. Her emotion toward the south was always vacillating, so she collected inspiration for writing in this state of mixed love and aversion. We can see that all her novels are centered around southern environment and background. The common people in the south are her protagonist
25、s. Using these images, she wanted to explore into the inner confusion of people during the transition of the American South.With Mick Kelly, Frankie, and “Bienchen”, these three autobiographical adolescents, McCullers tries to give her own interpretation of self-definition, that is, how to get rid o
26、f traditional bonds of “female qualities”, how to further the possibilities of life. And in her defiance against gender boundaries, she successfully proves that though with difficulty, she and her girls are courageous enough to face this cruel world.1.2 The definition of the Southern RenaissanceThe
27、Southern United States, commonly referred to as the American South, is always shrouded in mystery. The presence of Native Americans, early European settlers from Spain, France and England and its reliance on slave labor constituted its unique cultural and historic heritage. As many of its early sett
28、lers were English immigrates, especially descendants of the middle class, squires and rich merchants, they made up the mainstream values and thinking pattern in the south. They advocated grace, honor, chivalry, esteem, force and the love of pastoral life. These characteristics seem contradictory and
29、 irreconcilable, but this is just the old south, famous for its hospitality as well as fierceness. After the overwhelming Industrial Revolution and its failure in the Civil War, however, the southerners were left with a deep wound. Not only was their economy staggering, but their self-respect and pr
30、ide were ashamed. While other parts of American was developing and urbanizing rapidly, the south was trapped in a crossroad. Which way to head for during this painful transition is a perpetual question in front of the south and its people.For a long time after the Civil War, a glaring gap in culture
31、 and way of thinking still existed between the agricultural south and the industrial north. However, there were efforts to reassess the past and explore into future framework. Led by a new generation of southern writers, who were filled up with shame over the failure in the Civil War, pride in the p
32、ast culture and traditions and self-searching about wars and history, the Southern Renaissance emerged and flourished. “The emergence of the Southern Renaissance as a literary and cultural movement has also been seen as a consequence of the opening up of the predominantly rural South to outside infl
33、uences due to the industrial expansion that took place in the region during and after the First World War.” (Wikipedia)1 Unparalleled in history, the Southern Renaissance brought us many brilliant writers and literary works.The most important figure in this constellation of writers is William Faulkn
34、er, who “helped usher in a whole new group of southern authors of the 1930s such as Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, and Carson McCullers”. (Chang 229) These writers have kept the continuity of the southern theme and helped remind the world of the existence of the resilient south. “They have made the sout
35、hern renaissance a fact of history.” (Chang 230)1.3 The definition of Bildungsroman Bildungsroman, in a nutshell, relates ones process of growing up. By definition, the Bildungsroman, or apprenticeship novel, is generally considered “the most significant German contribution to the novel genre,” and
36、“the term Bildungsroman is most closely associated with a small group of German novels written in the late eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth” (Mullane 92). It “is considered the story of a childs initiation into adulthood or youths struggling for identity, maturation, and a pla
37、ce in society”. (Sun 12) Johnann Wolfgang von Goethes Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre is considered to be the archetype of this genre. It was from England that American writers borrowed the genre and connected it with their own tradition, the interest in childhood. But later this literary tradition sprea
38、d to the American mainland and flourished there. “Since then, American writers of different generations have been overwhelmingly fascinated by this kind of novel and its typical theme of the psychological growth of a central character from adolescence to maturity plays upon the heartstrings of their
39、 readers.” (Sun 3) As the United States is a youthful nation, the stories of the young are vibrant too. Famous works of the Bildungsroman are numerous, such as Dickenss Great Expectations, Gorkys My Childhood and Joyces A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Their long lasting and popularity is du
40、e to the nature: everyone has gone through the pains and confusion of growing up, so it is easy to sympathize with the characters. And if most traditional novels labeled as Bildungsroman consider an accommodation between the individual and the society an essential characteristic of the genre, many A
41、merican apprenticeship novels, unlike their German counterpart, doubt or deny the possibility of achieving a gratifying result. Put under the background of Southern Renaissance, and especially in the works of Carson McCullers, the story of a childs initiation into adulthood often goes wrong. They ar
42、e not lucky enough to be born with a silver spoon. They are either lacking in paternal guidance or totally ignored by the family. In McCullerss works, the girls mothers are more or less invisible, and they have some difficulty communicating with their fathers. This absence shows the writers question
43、ing and introspection of the environment of southern adolescents. That is just where the purpose of this paper lies: after probing into the three protagonists process of growing up, we can see their efforts for pursuing their dreams and becoming a better self. Their Bildungsroman gives us confidence
44、 to believe that with so many youngsters striving for their tomorrow, the American South will see a brilliant sunrise in the not too distant future. 2. Demonstration2.1The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter-Mick Kelly This is McCullers maiden work, which brought her to a national fame and established her literary reputation. Originally entitledThe Mute,the novel is set in a small town in Georgia in the late 1930s and focuses on a deaf-mute John Singer and his connection to several lonely inhabitants of a small Southern town who conside
