A Study Of The Themes Of Black Humor Novels

The black humor novels prevailed in the United States in the1960s and1970s. Generally speaking, its rise is marked by a fiction anthology of Black Humor edited and published by the American writer Bruce Jay Friedman in1965. A number of fragments of the novels published in American newspapers and magazines since1960are collected in this book, which typically reflects the artistic characteristics of "black humor" named by the compiler. Since then,"black humor" as the symbol of a less strict literary genre is unique in the American literary world in the1960s, and keeps growing constantly with the number of writers expanding and works full of black humor emerging. With the gradual expansion of its influence, the black humor novels had formed a massive surge of literary trend in the United States in the1960s and1970s, and left a deep imprint on the history of literature.American black humor novels became so prominent in1960’s mainly for its unique methods of artistic expression which also become its highest-profile literary achievements. So, since the1960s, the study of black humor novels has been emerging in an endless stream. However, considerable research is keen to explore the artistic features or aesthetic style of black humor novels, especially its innovations of novel in form such as "anti-hero","anti-plot","anti-linear (logical) structure" and so on. In the sense of "anti-traditional", black humor novels establish the character and nature of their pioneering experiments, and thus reveal the important value and meaning. Hence, black humor novels in the American literature of the1960s were also once called "the vanguard novels" or "experimental fictions".However, if you want an objective, comprehensive measure or to (re)assess the value and significance of the black humor fictions, the theme behind the black humor should not be ignored. The contribution of black humor fictions, after all, is that its unique methods of artistic expression reflect profoundly the reality of American society of the1960s, or since World War II. But so far the study of the themes of black humor novels shows weak. Most theme analysis limited to cases of specific works, lacking overall research on the black humor novels which emerged as an important literary phenomenon in1960-1970s.This situation is not conducive to the comprehensive findings of its ideological value.Based on above understanding, the main purpose of this study is to grasp the key thought connotation of black humor fictions through the theme research on classical black humor works of1960’s or1970’s.And then, the ideological value of black humor novels will be revealed through the reflection attitude to reality and the way of presentation.Due to too many figures, events and disorder structure in black humor fictions, its themes which are usually expressed by characters and plots of a novel turned vague and not easy to capture. Furthermore, a black humor novel often involves more than one theme (black humor novels’"multi-themes" feature), so it becomes more complicated and difficult to summarize its core of thoughts.This article takes the method of text peruse combined with historical research, attempting to balance between the microscopic analysis of the (concrete work) and overall contemplation (to social reality), so as to get the objective and accurate analysis and interpretation. This article is based on the "subject" in the form of a list of6important themes out of (all) the black humor novels:war, politics, science, religion, wealth, and spiritual crisis. On every relevant topic, one or two typical works related more tightly to this topic are selected as the key objects of analysis, and several other works related to this theme less tightly are also introduced briefly, to reach a deep interpretation of this theme, as well as to prove it is one of representative themes of black humor novels.The study of a range of topics from the black humor shows that the themes exactly correspond to the various social reality in the United States in the1960s and1970s. It proves that black humor writers pay close attention to reality and human being’s situation as their creative vision and humanistic care stand, also their deep sense of criticism and pessimistic attitude behind their humor. Since almost all of these topics are in the works to "chaotic" manner of expression, more because of its philosophical consciousness consciously or unconsciously, thus on a more abstract or deeper meaning can be extracted from black humor novels more metaphorical nature of a subject--"chaos".Showing "chaos" in a "chaotic" manner in black humor fictions embodies a metaphysical concept of ideology--"Entropy" worldview. Advocated as a new following the modern worldview of Newtonian mechanistic worldview mode,"Entropy" worldview inspired by Modern physics "Entropy law" better explains the trend of increasing disorder in the modern world, increasingly showing various aspects of the reality of the decline. In aspect of expressing "chaos" or revealing a variety of "chaos" in the world from a different angle, black humor novels appear high degree of correspondence with the theory of "Entropy" worldview. Books on the "entropy" view of the world were published in1981, therefore, black humor novels’ practice during1960-1970s actually reflects the thought of a prospective or pilot. This also proves again that the art true to life may enable the work to have potential of transcendence.This article’s innovation is reflected in three aspects:First, in sense of research perspective, the main works of black humor novels have overall been studied in this dissertation, and come to the basic carding and summary of topic types in black humor novels, making up for the deficiency of previous studies in this regard. Second, in sense of research methods, this dissertation analyzes specific works as far meticulous as possible, in-depth interpretation of the text to show previous studies have not explained in depth. Third, in sense of the results of the research, it appears to be the new point of view and see that the ideological value of black humor novels is studied and demonstrated by combining with "entropy" worldview. Although the individual writers or works (mainly the works of Pynchon) involving "entropy theme" have discussed it, yet they are not beyond case studies, and had not been risen to the height of the worldview to examine the topic of ideological value.Black humor novels prevailed in the United States for20years or so, its creative peak period was recognized during1960-1970s. After the mid1970s, American black humor novel as a genre or a literary trend began to fade. However, its impact--including the concept of "black humor"--has been spread to wider areas and its effect has been found in many countries.In addition to novels,"black humor" as an expressive methods or artistic style is also in reference to other fields of art creation (such as black humor film), even in a broader sense, the term "black humor" has become a daily vocabulary term, to participate in the building of contemporary culture (in the sociological sense). As scholar Qian Mansu puts it,"Although the peak of black humor novels has passed, they still have a profound impact on the perception and expression characteristics of novels ". Therefore, the ideological and artistic value of the black humor fictions are still not out of date.