A Study of the Changing Main Characters in American Novels after World WarII and a New Trend in American Literature

二战后美国小说主要人物的变化及美国文学的新动向研究

基本信息

批准号：
10610472
负责人：
NITTA Reiko
金额：
$ 1.79万
依托单位：
HIROSHIMA UNIVERSITY
依托单位国家：
日本
项目类别：
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
财政年份：
1998
资助国家：
日本
起止时间：
1998 至 2001
项目状态：
已结题

项目摘要

In this study, I intend to show how main characters in American hovels have changed after World War II in order to define a new trend of American literature in the 21st century.The main characters in the 1950s and 1960s are often regarded as anti-heroes. I clarified the nature of the anti-heroes of each decade by analyzing the main characters of J. D. Salinger, Saul Bellow, and Philip Roth with the three criteria of an American hero given by R. W. B. Lewis : 1) to be superior to ordinary people, 2) to be free from both social and racial ties, and 3) to have strong principles in leading their lives.The heroic nature of main characters keeps declining dramatically through the Vietnam War, the counter culture, and the oil crises in the 1970s. And when American society becomes extremely conservative in the 1980s, American literature deals with more everyday materials and scenes. Accordingly its main characters become ordinary, too. I examined this change by discussing Bernard Malamud's novels, as well as the change in the attitudes towards marriage expressed by Saul Bellow's early and later characters. I also examined a new type of war novels in the 1960s written by Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut, and compared J. D. Salinger's war stories based on World War II and Tim O'Brien's war novel based on the Vietnam War, in order to disclose how the changing social attitudes affected their main characters.In the end, observing the main characters after the 1980s, I paid special attention to Walter Abish because of his radical humanistic attitude towards dealing with reality. Together with the post-modern style of his writing, it could indicate a new trend in American literature.

在这项研究中，我打算展示第二次世界大战后美国霍夫尔的主要角色如何改变，以定义21世纪美国文学的新趋势。1950年代和1960年代的主要角色通常被视为反英雄。我通过分析J. D. Salinger，Saul Bellow和Philip Roth的主要特征，阐明了每十年的反英雄的性质，其由R. W. B. Lewis赋予的美国英雄的三个标准：1）要优越，要优于普通百姓，2）与社会和种族联系，以及在他们的生活中保持强烈的范围。反文化和1970年代的石油危机。当美国社会在1980年代变得极为保守时，美国文学会涉及更多日常材料和场景。因此，它的主要角色也变得普通。我通过讨论伯纳德·马拉穆德（Bernard Malamud）的小说以及索尔·贝洛（Saul Bellow）早期和后来的角色表达的婚姻态度的变化来检查了这一变化。我还研究了由约瑟夫·海勒（Joseph Heller）和库尔特·冯内古特（Kurt Vonnegut）撰写的1960年代的新型战争小说，并比较了J. D. Salinger基于第二次世界大战和蒂姆·奥布莱恩（Tim O'Brien）基于越南战争的战争小说的战争故事，以披露对他的主要角色的不断变化的态度。处理现实。加上他的写作的后现代风格，它可能表明美国文学中的新趋势。