| The Shipping News is the second novel of E. Annie Proulx who is one of the most influential contemporary American writers and the first female writer who won the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. Published in1993, the novel is the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winning novel. It surpasses the former success with a sweep of all the most important awards for fiction in America.Because of Proulx’s quick ascent in literary world and the success of The Shipping News, the novel has been approached from perspectives of ecological literature, ecocriticism, regionalism, symbolism, language and black comedy, and so on. But there are few studies concerning with the protagonist’s initiation. This thesis intends to study The Shipping News from the perspective of initiation story and explores the significance of the study. After making a detailed study on Quoyle’s initiation process from initiation predicaments to self-fulfillment, it makes a conclusion that ecological environment is of great importance to the growth of human beings, which can be seen from the protagonist, Quoyle. Whereas in indifferent New York, he is a total failure, in harmonious Newfoundland, he succeeds in merging into the local community and gaining success in his career and love. Proulx demonstrates vividly how Quoyle realizes his self-fulfillment in the harmonious environment, and finally makes his selfhood complete by combing initiation with ecology, which makes it distinguished from other initiation stories.What is more, Proulx also points out the side effect that industrialization brings to the society and criticizes people’s unconsciousness of environment, looking back onto back-to-the-land movement which is helpful to the initiation of the marginal urban people. |
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