Imprisoned Self In The Age Of "Innocence"

Edith Wharton whose literary achievements can be compared with the master of realism Henry James in literary achievements is a remarkably productive American novelist.One of her representative The Age of Innocence earns her the honor of the first female winner of Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1921.By virtue of her outstanding psychoanalysis technique and superb satire art,Edith Wharton focuses on the protagonist Newland Archer's ups and downs in his life,especially his romantic triangle,revealing us the age of "innocence",when the tradition of Old New York always thwarts and even strangles the ambitions and dreams of the young.Edith Wharton reassesses where she lives and ironically tells readers that Old New York society regards the so-called innocence as the supreme moral code with the mask of conservativeness,hypocrisy,sophistication and slickness.Edith Wharton perfectly employs irony in characters and language depiction.The hero Newland Archer is like Edith Wharton herself,who lives in the upper class of Old New York but must get over the time and place to pursue her self-realization.In The Age of Innocence,The subtle and sensitive inner world and the emotional displacement of Newland Archer puts himself into the psychological struggle:comply with the tradition,or not;give the romantic love up,or not;lose his sense of self or not.Yes is the answer.Owing to his defects in personality and the imprisonment of the backdrops of Old New York,May for instance,Edith Wharton presents us a sorrowful but realistic destiny for Newland Archer at the end of the novel.The thesis attempts to analyze the protagonist Newland Archer's personality development against the Old New York based on psychoanalytic approach.As the founder of analytical psychology,Carl Gustav makes the great contribution to the concept of the collective unconscious.The collective unconscious is studied as the experience shared by a race or a culture so it is the cultural symbol reflected in humanity.The contents of the collective unconscious are called archetypes.Some archetypes applied in literature criticism frequently involves Persona,Shadow,Anima,Animus and Self.Self is the core and goal of all archetypes and works like sun in the solar space to alleviate conflict,balance,unify and harmonize the binary opposites.A successful self-realization is the integration,wholeness,oneness of one's self.Through the analytical analysis of the male protagonist,Newland Archer,the thesis draws the conclusion that,after Newland Archer's experience of Persona,Shadow and Anima with the corresponding objective reflection of other main characters,Newland Archer is still unable to make his own efforts to coordinate the contradiction of his Persona and Shadow,his wrong Anima and real Anima.His Self,a total personality,is thus underdeveloped lasting into his latter part of time.The imprisonment of his personality is not only the product of the surroundings of the Old New York,but the result of Newland Archer's unbalanced personality development.It is worth noting that taking Newland Archer as the hitting-point possesses great research value for it could be an epitome of the young man of the upper class in Old New York,revealing this generation's upheaving destiny.In a word,the thesis tries to study The Age of Innocence from a new edge,enabling readers to master novel themes by understanding novel characters.It's the author's heartfelt hope that this thesis could shed some light on the studies of The Age of Innocence and provide some reference for those applying Jungian personality theory into the appreciation of other literature works.