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1、TheSeeking ofAfrican-American LiteraturesIdentityBy theExample ofInvisibleManLiu Conghui刘聪慧AcknowledgementsUpon the fulfillment of my paper, I would like to express myheartfeltgratitude to those who have given me tremendous support andencouragement.First of all,Iam greatly indebted to my supervisor,
2、 Huang Xiaoli, Who not only proofread my proofead my dissertation in great detail, but also provided me withinvaluableguidancein my study over the pass four years ,Ithank her for her enlightening instructions, for her generosity inspendingherprecioustime discussing with me the questions involvedin t
3、his thesis as well as for her constant encouragement which is a kind of invisible strengthin my writing thethesis.My gratefulness also goes to professor and many other respectable teachers in the English Department of University of Science and Technology,liaoning, for their insightful lectures and a
4、cademic intelligence.Finallyand most importantly,Iwould give my deep gratitude to myparentsfor their love as well as devoted support and encouragement all these years.Contents美国“黑人文学”对自我身份的探寻以拉尔夫埃利森看不见的人为例摘要看不见的人是拉尔夫埃利森花费七年呕心沥血完成的唯一一部长篇小说，自1952年第一次出版时，被誉为划时代的小说，可以说是现代美国黑人生活的史诗。一些主要的书评报刊，如纽约时报、时代、星期六
5、评论都高度赞扬了这部小说，一致认为它具有重要的文学价值，是美国黑人文学史上具有里程碑意义的小说，被誉为“划时代的小说，可以说是现代美国黑人生活的诗史”。作者拉尔夫埃里森也是因为这本书赢得了不朽的名声。看不见的人是一部黑人小说，同时也是一部典型的以身份危机作为主题的小说。整部小说就是主人公，作为现代人的美国黑人，讲述他自己如何探索、寻找自我身份的生活历程。小说采用了“看不见”的表现形式，着重表现主人公所感受的精神压抑，描绘心理异化的过程，以主人公从天真幼稚走向认识成熟并最终觉醒所蒙受的苦难为故事主线，着重分析了主人公“我”探索自我身份所做出的努力，以及作为现代人的美国黑人在探寻自我身份过程中的异
6、化感和自我身份的失落。本文主要通过阐述看不见的人这部作品中主人公迷失及寻找自我的生活历程，探究其在当时的社会背景下如何迷失自我和迷失自我的原因，包括种族、社会及自身的原因。并论述如何探寻自我身份和探寻自我身份的深远意义。不仅使读者对这部作品有更深刻的了解，并对自我身份的探寻有更多的认识与思考。因此，对自我身份的探寻具有深刻意义，启迪我们要正确认识自我，实现自我价值。关键词：迷失；自我身份；探寻TheSeeking ofAfrican-American LiteraturesIdentityBy theExample ofInvisibleManABSTRACTInvisible Man is
7、the only saga novel of Ralph Ellison who has spent as long as seven years dedicating to finish. It has been hailed as one of the epoch-making novels and epic of the modern American blacks lives. Some of the major newspapers such as Times, NewYork Times, Comments on Saturday etc, highly praise this n
8、ovel for having important literary value and regasrd it as the remark of black American literary history. The author Ralph Ellison also won immortal fame for this book.Invisible Man is a black novel and ,at the same time, a typical one with identity as the theme of it. The novel is about the journey
9、 of the protagonist explores and searches for his own identity as a modern black American. The novel takes the “invisible” from as an expression, pays more attention to the spiritual depression that the protagonist has always sensed perceived and describes the process of psychological dissimilation.
10、 This novel takes the protagonists persuit for his ego identity, as well as the enlightenment of modern human beings seeking for self identity and sense of alienation which make Ellisons novel deeper in theme and more profound influence than geneal black novels. Through the analysis of the narrators
11、 life experience of losing andlooking for his identity, this paperpointsout that how the narrator lost his identity and the reasons of losing identity including racism, the society and the narrator himself.Then discuss how the narrator looks for his identity and the meaning of seeking ones identity.
12、Readerscannot onlyhavea moreprofoundunderstanding of the novel, but alsohave more thinking about seeking ones identity.Therefore, there is adeepermeaning of seeking ones identity, all abovethese,ittellsusthatwe should have right self-recognitionand achieve self-realization.Key Words:Lost;Identity;Se
13、ekingCONTENTS摘要ABSTRACTCONTENTSIntroduction1. AboutRalph Waldo Ellison andInvisible Man1.1 Ralph Waldo Ellison1.2Invisible Man2.TheLost oftheNarrators Identity2.1 The Confusion of the Society2.2 The Confusion of the Narrator himself3. The Reasons of the Lost of the Narrators Identity3.1 Racism3.2 Th
14、e Impact ofAmerican Culture3.3 TheInfluence of the Narrator Himself4. Search for Identity4.1His Awakening4.2 His Freedom4.3 His ResponsibilityConclusionBibliographyAcknowledgements1. Introduction1.1Ralph Waldo EllisonRalph Waldo Ellison(March 1, 1914 April 16, 1994) was an American novelist, literar
15、y critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City,after his third year, Ellison moved to New York City to study the visual arts. He made acquaintance with the author Richard Wright, with whom he would have a long and complicated relationship. After Ellison wrote a book review for Wright, Wr
16、ight encouraged Ellison to pursue a career in writing, specifically fiction. The first published story written by Ellison was a short story entitled Hymies Bull. From 1937 to 1944 Ellison had over twenty book reviews as well as short stories and articles published in magazines such asNew Challengean
17、dNew Masses.WhenWorldWar II was nearing its end,Ellisonwasreluctant to serve in the segregated army, chose merchant marine service over the draft.Ellison is best known for his novelInvisible Man, which was published in 1952 and won the National Book Award in 1953.In 1964, Ellison publishedShadow and
18、 Act,a collection of essays, and began to teach at Rutgers University and Yale University,while continuing to work on his novel.In 1967, Ellison experienced a major house fire at his home inPlainfieldMassachusetts, in which he claimed more than 300 pages of his second novel manuscript were lost. Wri
19、ting essays about both the black experience and his love for jazz music, Ellison continued to receive major awards for his work. In 1969 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom; the following year, he was made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France and became a permanent me
20、mber of the faculty at New York Universityas the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities, serving from 1970 to 1980.In 1975, Ellison was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters and his hometown of Oklahoma City honored him with the dedication of the Ralph Waldo Ellison Library. Continu
21、ing to teach, Ellison published mostly essays, and in 1984, he received the New York City Colleges Langston Hughes Medal. In 1985, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. In 1986, hisGoing to the Territorywas published. This is a collection of seventeen essays that included insight into southern
22、novelist William Faulkner and Ellisons friend Rich Wright, as well as the music of Duke Ellington and the contributions of African Americans to Americas national identity.1.2Invisible ManInvisible Manis anovel written by Ralph Ellisonin 1952. It addresses many of the social and intellectual issues f
23、acing African-Americans early in the twentieth century, includingBlack Nationalism,the relationship between black identity and Marxism, and the reformist racial policies of Booker T. Washington, as well as issues of individuality and personal identity.Invisible Manwon the U.S. National Book Award fo
24、r Fiction in 1953. In 1998, the Modern Library rankedInvisible Mannineteenth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.Timemagazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.Invisible Manwas a book that changed the way white Ameri
25、cans thought about black Americans.It also changed the way black Americans thought about themselves.And it caused major disputes among both black andwhitecritics.Critic Harold Bloom considersInvisible Manone of the finest American novels of the 20th century.Like many other novels, Ellisons story is
26、a series of experiences as the storyteller learns to deal with life.Yet, unlike other novels,Invisible Mantakes place in a dream-like atmosphere in the United States.It is a world where dreams come close to reality, and the real world looks like a frightening dream.The man telling his story inInvisi
27、ble Manlives in a hidden underground space.But to prove that he exists, at least to himself, he has lit his underground room with one thousand three hundred sixty-nine lights.They remain lit with power he has stolenfrom the electric company.In much of Ellisons novel the person telling the story is a
28、 victim, usually of white people, but also of some blacks.He both loves and hates the world.He plans some day to leave his underground shelter.He says that as a man he is willing to believe that“even the invisible victim is responsible for the fate of all.”The man telling the story says that as a bo
29、y, white men covered his eyes with a cloth.The white men tell the boy to blindly fight other black boys.The blacksare forced to fight each other to please whites.At the end of novel the story has moved from the American South to North.There are riots in Harlem, the black area of New York City.Instea
30、d of ten black children fighting each other blindly, grown black men are batting each other tothedeath.Black still are having their strength turned upon themselves.2. The lost of the narrators identity2.1Theconfusionof societyIn the late 1920s or early 1930s, the narratorlived in the South.Sincehe i
31、s afavored public speaker, he is invited tomakea speech to a group of important white men in his town. Thesemen reward him with a briefcase containing a scholarship to a prestigious blackcollege, but only after humiliating him by forcing him to fight in a “battle royal” in which he is pitted against
32、 other young black men, allblindfolded, in a boxing ring. After the battle royal, the white men force the youths to scramble over an electrified rug in order to snatch at fake gold coins. The narrator has a dream that night in which he imagines that his scholarship is actually a piece of paper readi
33、ng “To Whom It May Concern . . . Keep This Nigger-Boy Running.”Three years later, the narratorbecomea student at the college. He is asked to drive a wealthy white trustee of the college, Mr. Norton, around the campus. Norton talks incessantly about his daughter, and then shows an undue interest in t
34、he narrative of Jim True blood, a poor, uneducated black man who impregnated his own daughter. After hearing this story, Norton needs a drink, and the narrator takes him to the Golden Day, a saloon and brothel that normally serves black men. A fight breaks out among a group of mentally imbalanced bl
35、ack veterans at the bar, and Norton passes out during the chaos. He is tended by one of the veterans, who claim to be a doctor and who taunts both Norton and the narrator for their blindness regarding race relations.Back at the college, the narrator listens to a long, impassioned sermon by the Rever
36、end Homer A. Barbee on the subject of the colleges Founder, whom the blind Barbee glorifies with poetic language. After the sermon, the narrator is chastised by the college president, Dr. Bledsoe, who has learned of the narrators misadventures with Norton at the old slave quarters and the Golden Day
37、. Bledsoe rebukes the narrator, saying that he should have shown the white man an idealized version of black life. He expels the narrator, giving him seven letters of recommendation addressed to the colleges white trustees in New York City, and sends him there in search of a job.The narrator travels
38、 to the bright lights and bustle of 1930s Harlem, where he looks unsuccessfully for work. The letters of recommendation are of no help. At last, the narrator goes to the office of one of his letters addressees, a trustee named Mr. Emerson. There he meets Emersons son, who opens the letter and tells
39、the narrator that he has been betrayed: the letters from Bledsoe actually portray the narrator as dishonorable and unreliable. The young Emerson helps the narrator to get a low-paying job at the Liberty Paints plant, whose trademark color is “Optic White.” The narrator briefly serves as an assistant
40、 to Lucius Brockway, the black man who makes this white paint, but Brockway suspects him of joining in union activities and turns on him. The two men fight, neglecting the paint-making; consequently, one of the unattended tanks explodes, and the narrator is knocked unconscious.2.2 The confusion ofth
41、e narratorhimselfThe narrator wakes in the paint factorys hospital, having temporarily lost his memory and ability to speak. The white doctors seize the arrival of their unidentified black patient as an opportunity to conduct electric shock experiments. After the narrator recovers his memory and lea
42、ves the hospital, he collapses on the street. Some black community members take him to the home of Mary, a kind woman who lets him live with her for free in Harlem and nurtures his sense of black heritage. One day, the narrator witnesses the eviction of an elderly black couple from their Harlem apar
43、tment. Standing before the crowd of people gathered before the apartment, he gives an impassioned speech against the eviction. Brother Jack overhears his speech and offers him a position as a spokesman for the Brotherhood, a political organization that allegedly works to help the socially oppressed.
44、 After initially rejecting the offer, the narrator takes the job in order to pay Mary back for her hospitality. But the Brotherhood demands that the narrator take a new name, break with his past, and move to a new apartment. The narrator is inducted into the Brotherhood at a party at the Chthonian H
45、otel and is placed in charge of advancing the groups goals in Harlem.After being trained in rhetoric by a white member of the group named BrotherHambro, the narrator goes to his assigned branch in Harlem, where he meets the handsome, intelligent black youth leader Tod Clifton. He also becomes famili
46、ar with the Black Nationalist leader Ras the Exhorter, who opposes the interracial Brotherhood and believes that blackAmericansshould fight for their rights over and against all whites. The narrator delivers speeches and becomes a high-profile figure in the Brotherhood, and he enjoys his work. One d
47、ay, however, he receives an anonymous note warning him to remember his place as a black man in the Brotherhood. Not long after, the black Brotherhood member Brother Wrestrum accuses the narrator of trying to use the Brotherhood to advance a selfish desire for personal distinction. While a committee
48、of the Brotherhood investigates the charges, the organization moves the narrator to another post, as an advocate of womens rights. After giving a speech one evening, he is seduced by one of the white women at the gathering, who attempts to use him to play out her sexual fantasies about black men.After a short time, the Brotherhood sends the narrator back to Har