Anxiety Of Paternal Influence:A Study Of Martin Amis's Father And Son Novels

Martin Amis is one of the most influential contemporary British writers.As a prolific experimental novelist,he has published many literary works including novels,short stories and scripts.Martin is also one of the most controversial among the contemporary British writers.Arguments about Martin's personal life,his works and his writing style have become an important phenomenon.Kingsley Amis,the author of Lucky Jim,is Martin's father.Because of his special relationship with Kingsley,critics once believed that Martin's prominence in literary circles was closely related to his father.Martin is popular among critics,and there have been abundant research on his works both at home and abroad.Some critics have studied the unique narrative style of Martin's works;others have explored the themes,such as desire,life and death,massacre trauma,and media,in Martin's works.Although some scholars have done comparative studies of Martin's works and his father's,few have tried to dig out his father's influence from studying Martin's literary works.This thesis,taking Harold Bloom's "anxiety of influence",Sigmund Freud's "Creative Writer and Day-dreaming",and some child psychology theories as its theoretical basis,analyzes the created different father and son images and different writing styles in Martin's father and son novels.It reveals that Martin Amis,with a famous writer as father,had gone through the phases from being under the influence of his father,to being with the anxiety of paternal influence,and finally to overcoming the anxiety of paternal influence.It points out that,after overcoming the anxiety of paternal influence,Martin successfully established himself as the literary giant in literary field.The thesis consists of five chapters.The first chapter is Introduction,which gives a brief introduction to Martin Amis and his relationship with his father,presents a review of the previous studies on Martin Amis and his novels,and explains the focus and structure of the thesis.The second chapter,by analyzing the father images created in his father and son novels,reveals the writer father Kingsley's influence on Martin.On one hand,Martin regards his father as the role model,which is reflected in his creation of glorious fathers in the novels and his pride in having a literary giant father.On the other hand,Martin's grudge about lack of paternal care both in family life and in writing can be seen from his creation of indifferent fathers.The third chapter,by discussing the son images and Martin's writing techniques in his father and son novels,reveals Martin's anxiety as a result of paternal influence.The anxiety is manifested both in Martin's ambivalence toward his father and in his contradictory responding strategies to his father's literary influence.The fourth chapter is about Martin's ultimate way to cope with his anxiety.In life,he learns to come to terms with pressure;in writing,he finds another mentor.In this way,he establishes himself as a literary giant.The last chapter draws the conclusion that even though Martin has suffered anxiety of his father's influence in both life and writing,he successfully overcomes it and makes great achievements in his literary career.