An Interpretation Of David’s Initiation In Call It Sleep From The Perspective Of Mirror Stage

Henry Roth is one of the greatest modern American Jewish writers and a famous master in modern history of Jewish literature. His first long novel Call It Sleep was published in 1934, which was his masterpiece, listed among the top one hundred English novels from the year 1923 to the year 2005. His novel Call It Sleep is called "master work of American Jewish literature". From the perspective of an American Jewish immigrant child, the writer depicted the living condition and the embarrassing cultural situation in New York, especially the painful initiation experience of the hero David Schearl. This novel was once out of picture after being published. Around thirty years later, the novel was rediscovered by readers. With the comments and studies increasing, this classic work had become known to a lager number of people.Western scholars have made some early studies, while in China, the work is still unknown to the masses, and its value is still neither dug out nor well taken advantage of. In such case, this thesis targets on Call It Sleep and studies the growing pains of the hero David Schearl, who suffered various misfortunes and bitter adversity during his growth, which were resulted from his family, parents, religious beliefs, immigration environment, society, and so on. The psychological development process bears great resemblance with Lacan’s mirror stage. So it’s not difficult to explain why those pains and misfortunes happened in David’s initiation stage from Lacan’s mirror stage. The initiation plight David experienced and his self-salvation are also presented. Aiming at the concrete behaviors in mirror stage and the initiation troubles, the author will help David find some possible ways of getting out of those initiation troubles.Lacan’s mirror stage theory enlightens people to analyze oneself with exact self-position and offer possible opportunities to reconstruct self-identity. It is instructive for people to grasp further knowledge of the ego and it’s helpful and effective to adjust ego and social relationships with others around, which is important for people’s individual development. This thesis will be of great value and give some instructions on how to study the determinants during people’s growing stages and to find ways to reconstruct self-identity.There are three parts in this thesis, including the introduction, the main body and the conclusion. The main contents are as follows:The first part is the introduction. It presents the author’s life experience and his work Call It Sleep briefly. Then Lacan’s mirror stage theory is illustrated. Finally comes the research status of this novel domestically and abroad. In addition, the study perspective, its creativity and meaning and the value of this thesis are also included.The second part is the main body, which includes three chapters.The first chapter focuses on the hero David’s initiation troubles brought by the mirror functions in the novel Call It Sleep. Through the application of Lacan’s mirror stage theory, the author analyzes the hero David’s behaviors in pre-mirror stage, including disorder of his body in pre-mirror stage, disharmony family relationships and loss of self-identity, as well as its foreshadowing function on the following mirror stage.The second chapter further discusses the causes of David’s initiation troubles, namely influences from mirror others, including confusions caused by immigration, trapped in Oedipus complex, rising of repressed desires, analyzing the concrete reasons from aspects of living environment, religious beliefs, languages and different cultures, which contribute a lot to David’s growing pains.The third chapter analyses possible ways of David’s getting out of initiation troubles aiming at his suffering pains and misfortunes as well as the results of his attempts to reconstruct his self-identity, searching for possible and feasible methods against the initiation adversity, including breaking the mirrors’ constraints, accepting the real self in post-mirror stage and improving the relationships with others, and find feasible methods to realize the "rebirth" both mentally and physically.The last part is conclusion. The author mainly makes a conclusion on the previous parts in this thesis, and points out the writing purpose. In the process of David’s growth, he has been influenced a lot by the virtual images in the mirror stage, leading to his loss of self-identity and mental malfunction, which finally contributed to the tragedy of being shocked by electricity. His "waking up" in the end indicates the possibilities of his getting out the initiation pains. While in order to get out of the initiation troubles, the hero David has to accept his real self image, improve the relationships with others and break the mirrors. The deficiencies and limitations of this thesis, analyses about the content statement and the feasibility of the possible ways are also presented.