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生存主义视角下的《看不见的人》

第18卷第5期 2011年10月 兰州工业高等专科学校学报 

Journal of Lanzhou Polytechnic College V01.18’ No.5 

0ct.2011 

文章编号:1009—2269(2011)05—0068—05 

Study of Invisible Man i n the Framework of Existentialism Theory JING An—da (Peking University,Beijing 100871,China;) Abstract:Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a classical work in contemporary American literature.The muhiple meanings of the novel attract millions of readers and critics to devote their attention to it.One laver 0fthe meaning agrees with the Existentialism to the uttermost degree.The aims of the ariticle is to reveal the deep relationship between Existentialism and the nove1. Key Words:Ellison;Invisible Man;Existentialism 中图分类号:H319.3 文献标志码:A 

1 I ntroduction Ralph Ellison was one of the superb representa。 fives among the 20 century black American writers. His famous novel Invisible Man published in 1 952 was his most important work in his whole life.Through Invisible Man,Ralph Ellison describes spiritual jour- ney from stupidity to epiphany of a young man,who is spiritually lost in the white-centered culture.The young man intends to search for himself,but the hos— tile and absurd society always fails him.At last,he has nothing to do but live in a desolate basement. Existentialism was a contemporary philosophical trend prevailing in Europe since WW I.Its main concern includes the irrationality of the external world,human beings’alienation in such a world,in・ dividuality and man’s essential freedom.Obviously, Invisible Man in many respects corresponds to the thought of Existentialism.Therefore,this thesis aims to discover and explore the close relationship between the novel and Existentialism.The first chapter pro- vides a general introduction to the author and his work.The second chapter concentrates on finding out 收稿日期:2011-05.10 作者简介:靖安达(1983一),男,河南南阳人,助教,硕士 existentialistic characteristics in Invisible Man 2 A General I ntroduction to Ralph Ellison and|nvisible Man 2.1 His Life Born in Oklahoma City,Oklahoma,in 1914,a state which had no tradition of slavery and whose pat— terns of segregation were not so inflexible as to pre— vent an easy relationship between black and white, Ellison experienced a relatively happy childhood and adolescence.The academic program,was of suffi- cienfly high quality for him to have assimilated,by early adolescence,the concept of Renaissance Man. He wanted to pattern his own behavior and achieve— ment after that model,just as though racial discrimi— nation did not exist. An adjunct to Ellison,s formal education was his reading.Starting with the fairy tales,he voraciously devoured the junior fiction and went 0n to Westerns and detective novels and into the classics.He also read with pleasure the Haldeman Julius Blue Books,inexpensive forerunners of pres— 第5期 JING An—da:Study of Invisible Man in the Framework of Existentialism Theory ent.day paperbacks,small books with uniform blue pal:ler covers,whose contents ranged from Shake— speare to Nietzsche and from Oriental epic to contem— porary humor. An element of even greater importance in his de— velopment as writer was his absorption of the very life of the times from the churches,the schoolyards,the barbershops,the cotton-picking camps,places where,as Ellison observes,folklore and gossip thrived.Contributing further to the Knowledge of the very fabric of American lire was his observation of such human activities as circuses,minstrel shows, vaudeville,moving pictures,prize fights,foot races, baseball games,football matches,and church meet— ings. All those impression from his environment im。 pinged upon his consciousness.But there was still another circumstance which played a major role in de- termining the course of his life.the fact that his fa- ther had named him after a great American poet and philosopher,Ralph Waldo Emerson. When Ralph reached the grades where his fa- molls predecessorg works were taught,his resentment increased.Following,he says,the advice given in” Self—Reliance.’’he changed the”Waldo”to a sim- ple,he hoped,unrecognizable”W”and in his own reading he thereafter avoided Emersong works. Upon graduation from high school,Mr.Ellison ent・ered Tuskegee,the famous school founded by Boo— ker T.Washington,with the original intention of studying music and becoming a composer.But during his second year he encountered a work which effec— ted,he states,the real transition to writing.He read The Waste Land,T.S.Eliotg poem which deals with the moral and spiritual sterility of the twentieth centu- ry;and which has had so wide an influence in this century.As Ellison expresses it,it seized his mind, and he feh that its rhythms were closer to jaZZ than those of the Negro poets whom he was beginning to read. After his junior year Ellison went to New York, where in 1937 he met the man who was to become one of the greatest Negro writers,Richard Wright.It was also under Wrightg influenee that Ellison became associated with politically radical movements.His strong sense of individuality,which is so evident in all his published works.prevented his being absorbed by any ideology. A more significant result of Ellison ̄s association with Wright,and with other Negro authors such as Langston Hughes,was that Ellison himself began to write and to publish.In 1952 came the great novel, Invisible Man.Its significance is attested to by its having reached its nineteenth printing by the late 1 960,by receiving the National Book Award for Fic— tion in 1953,and by being acclaimed by a 1965 Book Week poll of two hundred prominent authors,critics, and editors as”the most distinguished single work published in the last twenty years.”Professor Margo— lies considers Invisible Man a recapitulation of the en- tire history of the Negro,presenting a view of life de— scribed bv Ellison himself as blues…. 

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