The Thematic Concern About Human As Seen In Cold Mountain

Compared with those classics by literary giants in American history, Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain (1997) is but a new book born in the consumptive and fast-food culture of today. Being appreciated or depreciated, however, it HAS won a phenomenal success, drawing many critics' attention, with tons of reviews by them, soon after its publication. Its reception of the National Book Award in the same year after it saw light is further proof positive that the novel has its inherent values. Despite its up-to-now uncertainty of a secure prominent position in American literature, the book has so interested the author of the present thesis that she has devoted an enormous amount of time and energy to the reading and study of it, and wishes eagerly to share her research gains with other readers.First of all, there are many reasons underlying Cold Mountain's prodigious success and critical popularity, such as the masterly use of language, the unique romantic love story. What the author will concentrate on is one of the basic elements of a literary work, the theme. In her opinion, the novel consists of layers of meanings, some of them being easily sensed, while others veiled and left in obscurity. With the former, this thesis will try to present them in a way deeper than surface sensing; as to the latter, it will try to unearth them by an in-depth academic analysis. Owing to the limited space of a thesis, the author will only focus on one aspect of the thematic concerns of this book, i.e., the concern about the human, as is hinted right in the title. In other words, the major argument of this thesis is that Cold Mountain has a significant thematic concern that one of the important aspects of the...