| The works of Stephen King (1945- ) have been translated into thirty-three languages, published in thirty-five countries, and have made into more than seventy films, television movies and mini-series. Only the Bible can be compared with this sort of press. Each new book is destined to rise up to the top of the New York Times Bestseller list in a few short weeks. During his writing career, King had published hundreds of short stories and sixty books by the year of 2000. It is a miracle in American publishing history. Receiving numerous awards and honorary degrees, King was conferred upon the 2003 medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the 54th National Book Awards Ceremony. This honor has put him in line with great authors such as Saul Bellow, Eudora Welty, Toni Morrison and Arthur Miller, etc. In making the announcement on behalf of the Board of Directors, Neil Baldwin, executive director of the Foundation, said, "Stephen King's writing is securely rooted in the great American tradition that glorifies sprit-of-place and the abiding power of narrative. He crafts stylish, mind-bending page-turners that contain profound moral truths—some beautiful, some harrowing—about our inner lives."What is probably more impressive than the number of books King has published or the amount of money he has earned is the Gothic tradition he has incorporated into his imitable art that is the very embodiment of a postmodernist aesthetic. The unprecedented levels of readership and media attention have been matched with critical enthusiasm. These critics evaluate and judge King's every work in various perspectives of microcosm and macrocosm. In Cujo, one of his early works, from new Gothic angle King probes the alienated interpersonal world and shows the solicitude for individual psyche. This work won him British Fantasy Award in best novel category in 1982. It is necessary to make a thorough investigation and study on Cujo to learn how the ample expression of the originality of new Gothic in Cujo gives readers a new insight into contemporary American society and culture. However,critics did not do so. Therefore, it is the author's intention in this thesis to explore the themes from the angle of new Gothic and to discuss the new Gothic world unfolded in Cujo in comparison with Gothic tradition. This thesis consists of five parts, with three chapters coming between the introduction and conclusion.Chapter One deals with Gothic tradition of American literature and Stephen King's new Gothic world. American fiction began in the Gothic mode because the first substantial American efforts in fiction coincided with the great period of British and European Gothic. Its stubborn flourish in the United States has its own deep historical, cultural, literary and social roots. To many American authors, Gothic came to seem the most appropriate style for dealing with American experiences. They adapted the British and European Gothic to a democratic new world. However, these conventions are creaky and decrepit from their two hundred plus years of use. In the contemporary age, the Gothic conventions that King and other authors make use of are a bit different from the old ones. It is called New Gothicism. It has several features. For example, it focuses on the grotesque and stresses on from the vital events to the individual psyche; the microcosm becomes the arena where universal forces collide; the terrible atmosphere is strengthened by the feeling of suffocation achieved by certain writing techniques. King blends new Gothic with the contemporary problems in American society to probe the various aspects in the United States. Thus he provides a key to unlock profound insights into the world of American general life.Chapter Two probes the theme of grotesque in Cujo from the perspective of the interpersonal world, which can be read as the story a culture does not wish to tell, nonetheless, it necessarily speaks. Much as the old Gothic temperament was wild, romantic and sublime, new Gothic lays stress on the grotesque which is an expression of an alienated world. First by depicting a slaughter that had been avoided, King exposes a cold and alienated interpersonal world. Then he centers on a declining family to further the theme. Finally King creates two weakling heroes who are different from the villain heroes in the traditional Gothic fiction. The narcissism drives them deeply into their private worlds and the monomania caused by monstrous self-love leads to death. King reveals an alienated world in Cujo that is accumulationof our everyday fears—horrors woven from the dark strands of the American social fabric. Thus the enduring chill and the feeling of suffocation will arise from the curious fusion of death, the distorted love and violence. The entire story appears taking place in a reality. However, King does not stay in the surface of the real life The political background and social capacity are expanded here: King observes the vital social events carefully, while depicting the uncommon pressure and horror withstood by certain individuals.Chapter Three analyzes the theme of the female world in the trenches. By probing Donna's transformation process as new Gothic believes an individual is more important than the whole of society, King focuses on the contemporary American women's life state and great latent potentialities unleashed when they break down limitations reinforced on them. She is different from the vulnerable heroines in the early Gothic and the heroines in Gothic fiction by female writers who created and queried the fictional roles of the previous heroines in Gothic writing and the social construction of women. The Donna Trenton created by King is a common secular woman with defects in a realistic environment. It gives her the stage to confront the identical problems that ordinary human beings always face today. Donna is ultimately forced to rely only on herself to survive from the life-or-death struggle with rabid Cujo. King creates a completely new heroine to some extent. By analyzing Donna's growth, King, in the perspective of a male writer, probes the psyche and spirit of a female individual to display a true female world, where modern American women are haunted by their identity, self-values, embarrassing social positions and the confusing role in the patriarchal society.Through the detailed discussion of various aspects of Stephen King's new Gothic world, this thesis hopes to reveal the striking changes that new Gothic stresses on, from the vital events such as history, culture and political institutions to the weak individuals and interpersonal world. One origin of this transformation is that when an old literature tradition continues a new era, it must blend conventions with inventions to keep abreast of the times. In addition, the modern world shows the solicitude for human beings, especially for females in male's shadow. Thus it is exposed that humansoul is deep in confusion after its desires of material life are satisfied in a prosperous society. The interpersonal world becomes estranged while the female world is narrow and void. In a word, in the heart of King's new Gothic world is a profound awareness of the most emotional and deep-seated American anxieties. Behind the terror and grotesque, his world mirrors America. Only from the sobering perspective is a reader fully capable of experiencing the true torment of contemporary American society. |
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