On Intertextuality In Jesmyn Ward's Novel Salvage The Bones

Jesmyn Ward is an African-American novelist from Mississippi,USA.As an upand-coming writer,Ward's three novels—Where the Line Bleeds,Salvage the Bones and Men We Reaped all receive wide acclaim,among which the novel Salvage the Bones won the National Book Award in 2011 in America.From a teenager's perspective,the novel covers twelve days leading up to and after the hurricane,narrating a story about how a poor traumatic black family in Mississippi regains love and gets through difficulties in unity.The novel receives the large and positive reception among overseas readers.However,domestic studies on this novel are scarce.Based on the theory of intertextuality,this thesis analyzes the influences William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying,the Greek mythology and the Bible exert on the novel respectively,pointing out that the referential relations between the pretexts and the novel strengthen the novel's theme of destruction and rebirth.This thesis consists of five chapters.The first chapter briefly introduces the author Jesmyn Ward and her major works,providing information about her literary creation background.Then it makes an overview of the current academic research concerning the novel and briefly introduces the theory of intertextuality and its main contents.Chapter Two to Chapter Five are the main chapters of the thesis,focusing on analyzing the major intertextual phenomena in the novel.The second chapter concentrates on the intertextuality of characters between William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and the novel.By comparing the two pairs of deceased mothers and pregnant teenagers,this thesis points out that Ward recreates characters on the basis of imitation,strengthening the theme of destruction and reconstructing the theme of rebirth.Chapter Three looks into the intertextuality of plots between the Greek mythology and the novel.Esch and Manny's development process of love is in correspondence with the myth of how Jason betrays his lover Medea.Two similar love tragedies highlight the theme of destruction.The myth of how Orpheus rescues his lover Eurydice consists with Esch and Big Henry's love relationship.By revising the ending of Orpheus' s failure,Ward enhances the theme of rebirth.Chapter Four discusses the intertextuality of images between the Bible and the novel.The Batistes in the novel live in “the Pit”,a Biblical image symbolizing the place of destruction.The flood brought by the Hurricane Katrina echoes with the Great Flood in the Genesis,signifying “purification and rebirth”.These particular images reveal the harsh living environment of the poor black southern people and express the author's wish to construct a new world.The last chapter is the conclusion,summarizing the major intertextual phenomena in the novel and reiterating the theme of destruction and rebirth reflected in the aspects of maternity,love and hope.It emphasizes that the novel's connotations are the result of the interrelation and interweaving of multi-texts.At last,the thesis briefly states the limitations of the research and makes tentative predictions of the future study of Salvage the Bones.