ABSTRACTS
Repetition and Revision: Unraveling Gender, Race, and Class Issues in Invisible Man and The Bluest Eye (pp. 5-12) ABSTRACT: In contemporary African American literary studies, gender conflict is a focal issue. Black men and women writers seem to follow two separate literary traditions. Focusing on Morrison’s subversion and revision of Ellison’s novel in terms of gender and her destabilization and expansion of his work in terms of race and class, this paper proposes the concept of “repetition and revision” as a mode of inquiry to analyze African American literature, outlining a possible African American literary tradition that transcends the gender line. Keywords: Black literature, literary tradition, incest, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison Author: Zhao Wenshu
Spatializing Time: The Mass Media’s Politics of Memory in Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland (pp. 13-19) ABSTRACT: The quest for history in Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland features a tendency to spatialize time. Based on Bernard Stiegler’s discussion of mnemotechnology, this essay analyzes the spatialized time in the novel. I argue that Pynchon ascribes the spatialization of time to the exteriorization of memory in the mass media as a way to reflect on the decline of liberal ideals and the rise of right-wing conservatism in postmodern America after the 1960s. Keywords: spatialized time, mass media, interiority of memory, exteriorization of memory Author: Li Rongrui
The Fate Community of the Cat and the Woman: On the Gaze in “The White Cat” (pp. 20-25) ABSTRACT: Power relations are implied among the male, female and the cat in “The White Cat” by Joyce Carol Oates, and the cat and the female formulate a fate community to confront suppression by the male. On one hand, Muir dominates his wife Alissa and the white cat Miranda by means of naming, gender designation and his fate- deciding conduct. On the other hand, Alissa and Miranda boycott Muir and subvert his dominating status through Miranda’s animal gaze and the process of Alissa’s becoming-animal and becoming-woman. The questioning of male domination and the affirmation of female and animal independence reflect Oates’ sense of equality between women and men as well as her view of animals. Keywords: “The White Cat”, gaze, Joyce Carol Oates Author: Jiang Lifu
Nathan Englander as One of the Third-Generation Jewish American Writers (pp. 26-33) ABSTRACT: By returning to Jewish roots and reflecting on the Holocaust and Jewish resentment, contemporary Jewish American literature has found new ways to fuel its current boom. An important representative of the third-generation Jewish American writers, Nathan Englander in his recent works shows how contemporary Jewish American writers culturally position themselves. They return from assimilation to Jewishness but avoid defying mainstream culture; they offer a sympathetic understanding of the Jewish resentment but suggest that love and compromise provide the solution to ethnic hatred; they question the master narrative of Holocaust and its role in constructing Jewish identity. Keywords: third-generation Jewish American writers, return to Jewishness, revenge, Holocaust Authors: Tang Weisheng
A Thematic Reading of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated (pp. 34-39) ABSTRACT: Jonathan Safran Foer recurrently addresses the theme of memory in his works. Inspired by his long-term personal accumulation of memories, these works embody his artistic representation of memories from bitter personal experiences, tragic ethnic history, and painful national trauma. By tracing Foer’s reminiscences of the past in his novel Everything Is Illuminated, this article examines how he laboriously digs into the past, writes about the past and relives the past to create characters and analyze religious faith, integrating both fictional and real memories, dispelling the fear of being misunderstood, and eventually achieving the goal of transcending reality. Keywords: Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated, memory, forgetting Authors: Wei Xinjun
A White Garden of Eden: The Racial Problem in American Pastoral (pp. 40-45) ABSTRACT: In American Pastoral, Philip Roth portrays a Jewish protagonist who tries to get into the American mainstream. Analyzing the dominant role that whiteness plays in familial, national and international spheres, this article discusses the inevitable failure of the character’s idyllic ideal and his efforts to acquire equal citizenship, arguing that the popular image of America as the Garden of Eden is nothing but a white myth. Keywords: Philip Roth, American Pastoral, whiteness studies, race Author: Wang Lixia
Viewing and Being Viewed: Historical Spectacles in Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin (pp. 46-54) ABSTRACT: In Colum McCann’s post-9/11 novel Let the Great World Spin, the 9/11 terrorist event in 2001 is represented along with the spectacle of a high-wire performance between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. Juxtaposing the two historical spectacles enables McCann to imaginatively write back to the 9/11 event and convey his post-9/11 concerns through a narrative quite different from media and official narratives. Through fictional interaction between spectators and spectacles, McCann endeavors to transcend trauma narrative and suggests means of achieving existential equilibrium and spiritual redemption in the current era of loss and crisis. Keywords: Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin, post-9/11 fiction, historical spectacle Author: Wang Wei
Native American Self-Narration and the Sense of Community in Contemporary Native American Autobiographies (pp. 55-62) ABSTRACT: Native Americans have a long-standing tradition of self-narration which differs fundamentally from white autobiography that centers on the individual. With a sense of community as its primary concern, Native American self-narration stresses the integration of the individual into the community and voices community interests and demands through narratives of personal experience. In early Native American self- narrations, the sense of community is in accord with the common aspiration to maintain or strengthen tribal interconnection and to obtain community recognition and praise. In Native American autobiographies written during the transitional period, the sense of community manifests itself more in exposure of white colonization and nostalgia for cultural and spiritual traditions of the tribe. In expressing a shared sense of community, contemporary Native American autobiographers condemn the genocide of Native Americans by white colonists and articulate intense concerns about the destiny of Native American communities. They also shoulder the responsibility of advocating Native American culture and devotedly explore how to re-embrace traditional faith and reconstruct self-identity within the community. Keywords: Native American self-narration, contemporary Native American autobiography, sense of community Authors: Zou Huiling
On Spatial Writing and the Question of Identity in “The Third and Final Continent” (pp. 63-69) ABSTRACT: “The Third and Final Continent,” the last piece of the short story collection Interpreter of Maladies by Indian American author Jhumpa Lahiri, narrates a story about an Indian immigrant shuttling between two cultural worlds to pursue his home consciousness and to negotiate his identity. From the perspectives of space and identity, this article explores the ways Lahiri constructs three different spaces for the male narrator to engage in his cultural adaptation and to re-identify with his Indian American community so that he finally reconstructs his spiritual home. Keywords: space, heterotopia, home consciousness, identity Author: Li Guicang
Ethical Introspection in The Sense of an Ending (pp. 70-76) ABSTRACT: Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending is about an ethical tragedy caused by the protagonist’s confused ethical identity. Adrian’s ethical confusion and Webster’s ethical introspection indicate the existence of Sphinx Factor in human mind and its complexity. It is the clash and transformation between human and animal factors that lead to the ethical conflicts among rational will, free will and irrational will. This paper delves into what Barnes’s narrative purports to do through analyzing a series of ethical misfortunes caused by a revenge letter. It argues that Barnes uses “unreliable” retrospection to foreshadow the narrative process and tackles through “double take” such ethical issues as betrayal, fear, pain, despair, guilt, and responsibility. Keywords: ethical literary criticism, The Sense of an Ending, ethical introspection Author: Zhang Lianqiao
Connection in the Mirror: Television and Knowledge in A Whistling Woman (pp. 77-84) ABSTRACT: In A. S. Byatt’s A Whistling Woman, the television talk show “Through the Looking Glass” is a cultural site that connects various discourses of knowledge. As a new way of thinking and understanding, the television program tracks its characters before and behind the camera to represent the clashing as well as merging of thoughts from multiple disciplines, of various types, by different subjects. This paper examines the complex connection that discourses of knowledge display in the program, analyzing how the novel thereby explores the connection between science and literature, elite culture and popular culture, and self and other through the act of gazing in and outside of the TV set. Keywords: A. S. Byatt, A Whistling Woman, connection, discourse of knowledge, television culture Author: Yao Chenghe
On the Parodic Intertexuality in Margaret Drabble’s The Waterfall (pp. 85-91) ABSTRACT: Margaret Drabble manages to enrich her novels thematically through intertextuality, and her The Waterfall is one of the examples. The names of the main characters in this novel are the same as or similar to those in British history, enabling readers to reflect on their different experiences. The narrator refers to the true life experiences of some British writers, compares her own story with those literary works in British literary tradition, and borrows such themes as love, death and renunciation from Emily Dickinson’s poems. The ironic intertextualization, complete with the open ending of The Waterfall, shows Drabble’s faith in women of the new age. Keywords: Margaret Drabble, The Waterfall, intertextuality Author: Wang Taohua
The Postmodern Rewriting of Biblical Archetypes in The Heart of the Matter (pp. 92-98) ABSTRACT: In Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter, Scobie the protagonist and Yusef the black marketeer respectively harken back in characterization to Jesus and Satan in the Bible. In the absurdist story where definitions of good and evil overlap, however, both biblical archetypes undergo deconstruction to demonstrate the mutation of traditional values advocated by Catholicism and to some extent embody Greene’s own complex personality as well. The disloyal rewriting of the Bible reveals that myths are experiencing a decline in power to maintain dominant beliefs and to narrate history, and have therefore been turned into an object of free play in literature.
Politics of Space and Confusion of Ethical Identity in Zadie Smith’s NW (pp. 99-105) ABSTRACT: This article takes the theoretical approach of ethical literary criticism to study Zadie Smith’s NW, which has received much critical attention since its publication in 2012. The novel creates an ethical ecology of space relationships and human relationships to address new issues that trouble contemporary British immigrants, who find it difficult to locate their ethical identity between “subject” and “object”, “self” and “other”, “host” and “guest”. Thereby Smith reveals the complex identity problem that British citizens, especially second-generation British immigrants, are faced with in the 21st century. Keywords: Zadie Smith, NW, ethical literary criticism, politics of space, ethical identity Author: Wang Zhuo
Jeanette Winterson’s Existing Space: Existential Space under Power (pp. 106-112) ABSTRACT: When space, originally a concept in physics or geography, turns into a site of power relations, the nexus between space and power becomes inevitable. Jeanette Winterson in her novel The Passion reconstructs Napoleon’s imperial narrative to create a social backdrop against which she analyzes a male group and a female group doomed to control by the disciplinary power in their respective existential space, thereby denouncing the expansionist imperial ambition that suffocates humanity. In addition, Winterson proposes a third space featuring openness and fluidity as a glimpse of hope for human existence that indicates her positive thinking on life. Keywords: Jeanette Winterson, The Passion, power space, imperial narrative Author: Lin Shaojing
Machinery in Rudyard Kipling’s Writings (pp. 113-119) ABSTRACT: The Victorian age in England was an age of machinery, and machinery became the center of attention in the writings of many writers. Rudyard Kipling wrote a considerable number of poems and short stories on this subject to express his confidence in the progress of the British society. Kipling’s machinery writings demonstrate his Puritan work ethic, his idea of the Law, his reflections on the connection between technological and cultural developments, and on the relationship between Eastern and Western civilizations. Keywords: Machinery, Rudyard Kipling, Law, work ethic, civilization Author: Chen Bing
Communication, Reflection, Evolution: Art of Purification in Pinter’s Plays from the Perspective of Characterization (pp. 120-127) ABSTRACT: Characterization is one of the important means of achieving purification in playwriting. Variability and dynamic changes among Harold Pinter’s characters can be found respectively in the three different stages of his writing, namely his menace plays, memory plays and political plays. Based on the notion of purification in aesthetics of reception, and artistic techniques of characterization, this paper tries to explore Pinter’s unique style of purification and the artistic effects of communication, reflection and evolution in his plays. Keywords: Harold Pinter, characterization, communication, purification Author: Liu Minglu
Boris Pasternak’s Extended Writing on Petersburg (pp. 128-136) ABSTRACT: Boris Pasternak’s posthumous fiction, Second Portrayal: Petersburg, was intended as a tribute to a unique Russian literary tradition, for great Russian writers such as Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Andre Bely and Alexander Blok had already contributed a slew of writings that portray the city of Petersburg from various perspectives. Following their footsteps, Pasternak created a distinctively modernist novel on Petersburg, which both echoes and transcends his predecessors in terms of plot construction, mood creation, characterization, and the use of symbols and metaphors, thus further enriching the cityscape of Russian urban literature. Keywords: Boris Pasternak, Second Portrayal: Petersburg, extended writing Author: Wang Jiezhi
Octavio Paz’s Writings on India: In Light of India as a Case Study (pp. 137-143) ABSTRACT: During the 1960s, Octavio Paz experienced his most impressive Indian journey. Both his philosophical thinking and his poetic theory were therefore deeply influenced by the culture and religion of India. Chinese scholars, however, have paid little attention to this Nobel-Prize winner, let alone his writings on India. With a focus on Paz’s In Light of India, this paper analyzes his India writings to explore his poetic observation and description of India and his view on Indian politics and culture. The utopian image of India he constructs in these writings suggests his own complex identity and cultural psychology of rooted cosmopolitanism. Keywords: Octavio Paz, In Light of India, India, cosmopolitanism Author: Zhu Yan
Multi-dimensional Analysis of Alice Munro’s “The Bear Came over the Mountain” (pp. 144-151) ABSTRACT: Alice Munro’s “The Bear Came over the Mountain” is her masterpiece in the collection of Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001), which gives insight into Munro’s worldview, thoughts and art of writing. This paper aims to analyze from multiple dimensions Canadianness and national identity formation, ecofeminism, Christian spirit of love and redemption. It also approaches her employment of writing techniques, such as symbolism, paradox and parallel, and her profound observation of human nature and life as well as her views on harmonious genders, marriage, society and ecological environment so as to understand Munro’s particular thoughts and art of creation. Keywords: Alice Munro, Canadianness, eco-feminism, religious spirit Author: Fan Yutao
The Paradigm of Postmodern Autobiographical Narrative: Textual Self, Present Self, and True Self in Roland Barthes (pp. 152-158) ABSTRACT: In his autobiography Roland Barthes, the French thinker narrates pieces of his life story as per his post-modernist understanding of autobiography. He declares that the narrator in this work is merely a creation of language, an illusion of himself, or a textual self. By separating his present self from this textual self, Barthes hides his own voice behind the words to forge a paradigm of post-modernist autobiographical narrative. However, when the writer’s textual self encounters his true self from whom he could not depart, his view of post-modernist autobiography changes, illustrated not only by the return of the present self in his works, but also by his fictional narrative about his mother’s true self. Thus in his later works such as Journal de deuil (Mourning Diary), Barthes reveals himself as a grieving individual and his textual self disappears in fragmented narration. One can even say that in front of the true self of his mother, Barthes’ true self is resurrected and appears everywhere in his autobiographical narrative. Keywords: Roland Barthes, post-modernism, autobiographical narrative, textual self, present self, true self Authors: Wang Chengjun <[email protected]> is a professor at College of Liberal Arts, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, China (221116), specializing in critical theories. Zhang Yuwei <[email protected]> is a graduate student at College of Liberal Arts, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, China (221116), specializing in French autobiographical literature and comparative literature.
A Critical Overview of William Faulkner Studies Abroad since 2010 (pp. 159-166) ABSTRACT: Over the past five years, three new trends have emerged in William Faulkner studies abroad. First, some researchers have adopted the interdisciplinary methodology of cultural studies to approach Faulkner’s works, exploring topics such as sex and race, pepping up ecological and spatial discussions with ideas of post- humanism and post-colonialism, and foregrounding readings in light of media criticism. Second, new critical discourses have shed light on his lesser-known works and thus broadened the horizon of Faulkner studies. Third, the turn in narrative model of literary biography, further exploration into historical context, and multi-faceted comparative study have jointly created a new space for researchers to study Faulkner biographies and other related writings. Keywords: William Faulkner, Faulkner studies, critical overview Author: Han Qiqun
Caribbean English Literature in the UK and US: Research Focuses and the Making of Caribbean Poetics (pp. 167-173) ABSTRACT: A stream of pan-English literature, Caribbean English literature has shown vital productivity and engaged many British and American scholars. As time passes and literary trends shift, studies in Caribbean English literature have also undergone changes in terms of research focus and critical paradigm. Many scholars attempt to theorize its unique aesthetic features by formulating a particular critical discourse, namely “Caribbean Poetics”. Viewed from its reception, Caribbean English literature keeps moving from edge to center in the British and American literary scene, having captured many readers with its distinctive literary charm and artistic value. Keywords: Caribbean English literature, poetics, pan-English literature Authors: Zhu Zhenwu