From Thanatos To Eros

Martin Amis(1949-),one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945 according to The Times,is also known as a literary bad boy.Due to the controversial portrayal of women in his novels,Amis has been called a “misogynist”,but the writer claimed himself as “one of the feminist writers” of his generation.Despite his notorious name,Amis is a writer well-known for his concern about human existence in the postmodern age.Taking Sigmund Freud's Instinct Theory as its theoretical underpinning,this thesis will provide a reinterpretation of Amis' s three novels,Other People(1981),London Fields(1989)and Night Train(1997).Through an analysis of women's treatment of existential crisis,the thesis aims to reexamine Amis' s view on women and his attitude towards human existence in the postmodern age.This thesis falls into five chapters.Chapter One begins with an introduction to Martin Amis' s life and works,followed by an overview of studies on Amis' s novels,a synopsis of Sigmund Freud's Instinct Theory and an illustration of the purpose and layout of this thesis.Chapter Two is concerned with the prevalent phenomenon of women's strong death drive,reflected in their willingness to suffer,their inclination to die and their destructive power.Chapter Three shows the complexity of women's strong death drive and tries to prove women are in the meantime fighting against death through their aggressiveness.Chapter Four presents an analysis of women's desperate but active pursuit of existential possibility in love.Chapter Five concludes that instead of vilifying women,Amis is paying homage to their “being-toward-death”,contrasting sharply with the performance of Amis' s male characters.In doing so,the thesis disputes the criticism of Amis' s “misogyny” and contends that by emphasizing women's bravery,Amis is trying to persuade the readers to re-evaluate life from the standpoint of finitude and to convince the readers as well as himself that as long as life-preserving relationships can be established,hope of existence will be retrieved.