The Trajectory Of Jewish Themes In E.L.Doctorow's Fiction

This dissertation aims to probe the theme of Jewish survival in Doctorow's fiction based on the text of three of his novels, The Book of Daniel, World's Fair, and City of God. In this dissertation"Jewish survival"has two layers of meanings. Firstly, it refers to Jewish struggles for the rights to live in America when Jewish hatred still plagued American Jews. However, in the last decades of the twentieth century, anti-Semitism is not the factor that threatens the lives of Jewish people, so that"Jewish survival"in this period refers to the preservation of Jewish distinctiveness in American society where assimilation has gone so far that the continuity of Jews as an ethnic group is in great danger.The three novels reveal Doctorow's efforts to probe the way of the preservation of Jewish culture in modern American society. The Book of Daniel deals with Jewish people's appeal for the rights to survive as citizens of America, World's Fair probes the way to preserve Jewish identity in the interaction of Jewish and American cultures, and City of God pursues the continuity of Judaism in the modern world. In other words, Doctorow probes the theme of Jewish survival in America psychologically, culturally and theologically. The three novels published at different times show a gradual increase of Doctorow's Jewish consciousness since he is more and more willing to express Jewish culture and write about Jewish life.The shift of Doctorow's concerns at different times is in accordance with the political environment of American society and the fate of American Jews. The Book of Daniel published in 1971 reflects the political environment of the 1950s and 1960s when Jewish people were faced with many restrictions in America. It was not long after the end of the Second World War, the Jewish people who narrowly escaped the holocaust are still recovering from the trauma, but the cold war again puts American Jews in terror. To secure a position in the society or to survive is a much more urgent issue than the consideration of Jewish culture. Based on the famous atomic espionage case, the novel represents extensively the psychological trauma and struggles of American Jews in the post-Holocaust era. Doctorow compares Jewish people's living conditions after the massacre with the Babylonian captivity to express his disappointment at the failure of American democracy and his expectation of social reform to enable Jewish people's right to survive as citizens of the country.World's Fair is a turning point of Doctorow's literary creation. Doctorow turns to write solely about an ordinary American Jewish family to display Jewish culture through description of characters, language, and so on. It was published at a time when prejudice against Jews was much lessened and the problem of assimilation became sharply felt by Jews. How to preserve Jewish identity in the multi-cultural America becomes a problem confronting American Jews. Doctorow tries to find a way of compromise so as to preserve Jewish traditions in the young generations of Jews. To be American while remaining Jewish consciousness is an ideal state that is probed by Doctorow and is represented in many of his characters.City of God best represents Doctorow's concerns for Jewish fate and the survival of Jewish culture. At the end of the 20th century, anti-Semitism is not the major problem that confronts American Jews; instead, what endangers the survival of Jewish culture is alienation from Judaism by younger generations. Doctorow probes the religious issue in City of God though he has admitted on more than one occasion that he is a skeptic, which indicates the change of his attitude toward religions and expresses his strong concern for the future of Jewish civilization. Doctorow creates a chaotic world with a chaotic narrative strategy. The absurdity of the human society described in the novel subverts the godly"City of God"in Augustine's works and Doctorow suggests that Judaism could be a choice of the modern world to save the collapsed human morality. However, Doctorow thinks that the conventional Judaism cannot accommodate to modern world so that he creates an Evolutionary Synagogue and initiates a series of discussions in the synagogue to advocate substantial reform of Judaism so as to ensure its continuity in modern world.Doctorow aims to find a compromise between the American and Jewish cultures to probe the survival of Jewish culture in America. In other words, he aims to prove that Jewish and American cultures are compatible, and Jews do not have to forsake their traditions to be part of American society.This dissertation takes a thematic approach to analyze the change of Doctorow's concerns for Jewish fate and the survival of Jewish traditions from the ethnic perspective. Literary theories such as sociological studies with regard to ethnic identities, theories of New Criticism and the narrative theories will be applied to conduct analysis in certain parts of the dissertation. The Jewishness of Doctorow and his fiction is somewhat neglected and is seldom touched upon in Chinese literary research field. Several American scholars have pointed out the Jewish suggestions in Doctorow's fiction, but there is no systematic research on Doctorow's Jewishness so far. Therefore, I hope the research of Jewish themes in Doctorow's fiction would enrich studies on Doctorow and his works.