On The "Self-liberation" Of Henry Miller

"Self-liberation" is the central idea of Henry Miller and it is reflected in all of his works. Miller has been fulfilling his thought of self-liberation through all his life. All of his ideas are closely linked to his "self-liberation" thought such as his usage of surrealistic writing style and autobiographical form, his lifelong searching for "Truth", probing into illusory and mysterious power, yearning for freedom and advocating the anarchism. By analysis of the works of Miller as well as some researches on his life experience and his works, the thesis attempts to study the origin, connotation and significance of his self-liberation thought objectively and comprehensively from cultural traditions, social changes, and influence from other important writers. The author believes that self-liberation means that artists adopt unrestricted artistic forms to inspire people to help themselves and respect the real life and comply with the internal laws of life in a positive attitude and liberate themselves from all the rules which may bound their humanity and finally get close to the ideal state of existence. Needless to say, to some degree his thought is negative and immature due to the limitation of his thoughts at that time, but it is still very significant in that it breaks from social bondage and go forth between "free man" and "social man" freely, enhancing the mutual progress of human beings and society.