A Study Of The Alienation Of Characters In The Known World From The Perspective Of Fromm’s Alienation Theory

Edward P.Jones is a rising African American writer with great writing potential and explosive force.He is one of the most outstanding writers in contemporary literature.Jones won the National Critic Circle Award in 2003,the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2004,and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for Literature by The Known World.The Known World changes the traditional hostility to the race.Instead,it shows an little-known phenomenon: there exists black slave owners on the eve of the civil war.It breaks the traditional perception that only the white keep slaves,and gives people a new impact on their existing values.The reason for the above unimaginable phenomenon is that people of that period have been influenced imperceptibly by the alienated environment,which ultimately leads to the double alienation of individual psyche and behavior.Master of alienation theory Erich Fromm believes that the character in the alienated state feels that they are strangers.They cannot feel that he is the center or leader of his personal world.They separate himself from the personal behavior,letting the behavior become their master,and can only blindly follow or even become personal worship.They project the meaning of life onto virtual objects,which eventually leads to the alienation of individuals.This thesis uses Erich Fromm’s alienation theory to analyze and interpret the alienated characters in The Known World.In this way can we re-examine the characters with different personalities,reveal the essence of the alienation phenomenon in different characters,and present the complexity of the slavery problems.The alienation of psychological and behavioral are clearly presented.At first,this thesis briefly introduces the author Edward P.Jones,the full-length novel The Known World and Erich Fromm’s alienation theory.It summarizes and sorts out the current domestic and foreign scholars’ research status of this novel at home and abroad.There are three chapters in the thesis.Chapter One and two respectively focus on the alienation of the characters’ psyche and behavior.Through the analyses of the manifestations and causes of the alienation of characters’ psyche and behavior,the inner world of the characters are clearly displayed.It is precise because of the double alienation of psyche and behavior that the characters in the text become distorted and deformed,which finally leads to the alienation of the characters in the novel.Chapter three is about the different choices of different characters for their alienation state and the different results after their self-salvation.Some characters are always troubled by desire and the social environment.They even can not get out of the alienation state in the end.Others find and realize their value by facing slavery and racial problems,escaping from the existing bad environment,and rebuilding their sense of identity.They dispel the long-time troubled alienation state,reconstruct the natural state,and return to normal life.The last part makes a summary and highlights the significance and practical enlightenment.It also enlightens modern people to break the shackles of the environment and the difficult alienation state.Only by this way can we realize the reconstruction of the natural state.