From Morality Loss To Morality Reconstruction

E. L. Doctorow, as one of the most well-known Jewish American writers, has made a great contribution to the development of American literature. Lives Of The Poets by E. L. Doctorow is consisted of six short stories and a novella. The thesis gives an overall analysis of Lives Of The Poets from the viewpoint of the destruction as well as the reconstruction of social morality. It deeply probes into a writer's course of spiritual exploration and growth from immaturity to maturity. At the same time, it follows that Doctorow is devoted to meditation on the social responsibility of a writer. In Doctorow's mind, a writer as a warner should bear the responsibility for society and help ordinary people abandon social evils and finally contribute to build up a brand new system of morality in which people live in an active and optimistic way and are always ready to help others, namely a upward course from the destruction of morality to the construction of that.The thesis is consisted of five chapters.The introduction briefly gives a reference to E. L. Doctorow and his works and the comments on them in China and abroad. The background of Lives Of The Poets as well as the general studies on it at present are well-organized in the first chapter. The second chapter focuses on six phenomena of immorality after the World War II, respectively reflected in four short stories. This chapter highlights a powerful attack on the existing system of morality after the War. The third chapter concentrates on a process in which the protagonist, Jonathan, is in an urgent need of being identified by the mainstream culture and reconstructing the system of social morality. Before that, this chapter presents the confrontation and the struggles in the protagonist's mind by analyzing his isolation, his self-alienation and the loss of moral regulation. The fourth chapter makes it clear that a writer should return to society and create various kinds of characters who are examples of desirable conduct fitting with the new system of morality in his literary works. The protagonist wishes to live in an active way after experiencing an inactive way of life, getting confused at that and finally being tired of that. He occasionally discovers that there is a church in which some religious persons participate in illegal immigrations in the name of religion. Jonathan draws his inspiration from that and begins to believe that. Jonathan's conscience is enlightened by the questions asked by one of his friends, such as what a writer is or what a writer's true conviction refers to. Moreover, he begins to help the disadvantaged people and succeeds in seeking for a path to the reconstruction of morality. The fifth chapter as a closing part of the thesis concludes that Doctorow is finally able to find a way to accomplish the self-worth of a writer. Therefore, Lives Of The Poets is a collection of stories about the reconstruction of moral system after the War as well as a writer's spiritual growth.